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MODERN READERS’ SERIES 
Asuutey H. Tuornprxe, General Editor 


The Way of All Flesh 





The Way of All Flesh 


By SAMUEL BUTLER 






WITH INTRODUCTION BY . 
FRANCES THERESA RUSSELL 


ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH IN 
STANFORD UNIVERSITY 



















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Copyricat, 1925, 
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 


Set up and electrotyped. 
Published, December, 1925. 


Printed in the United States of America 


Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2021 with funding from 
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 


httos://archive.org/details/wayofallflesnOObutl_ 1 





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INTRODUCTION 


Ir was one of Butler’s grim jests that if his biography ever 
were written, it should open with the statement that its 
subject was “‘born of rich but dishonest parents.” No 
brief remark could be more of a keynote to a whole life 
and character. The man would always prefer a slashing 
epigram to a neatly trimmed truth, but he also believed 
what he said to be essentially true, and in this case it 
was. Though his parents were neither rich nor dishonest, 
they were well to do, and they did withhold from him 
his share of the family estate because they disapproved 
of his conduct, having no grounds for disapproval except 
dogmatic prejudice. It was this circumstance with all 
it involved that modified greatly his destiny in general, 
and in particular became the source and stimulus of his 
one novel, “The Way of All Flesh.” 

The literal facts that introduce Butler’s biography 
are that he was born in 1835, in a small town rectory, - 
the son of an Anglican Canon and grandson of the Bishop 
of Lichfield. It was this Dr. Butler who had accumulated 
the family fortune as Headmaster of the Shrewsbury 
School, where later young Samuel (and Ernest Pontifex) 
were prepared for Cambridge. | 

The stock was Warwickshire yeoman, with branches of 
the family tree reaching back to 1580, and connected with 
the landed aristocracy and, the learned professions. In 


the seventeenth century the Butler ladies introduced um- 


brellas and tea-urns into Kenilworth, and in the church 
of that historic spot are certain tombs in a section known 
as The Butlers’ Pantry. 

It would seem that young Samuel, the oldest of four 
children, entered life under fairly favorable auspices. 
He lived in a comfortable home; at the age of eight and 
again at thirteen he was taken on trips to Italy; he found 
his school days on the whole pleasant enough, for Shrews- 

Vv 


vi Introduction 


bury was not a Dotheboys Hall; and the four years at 
Cambridge, with walking trips and care-free recreation 
during the summer vacations, were a halcyon delight. 

But there were two acrid infusions into the lad’s exist- 
ence, one past and one to come, and together they em- 
bittered his whole life. The first was the severe home 
discipline to which he was subjected and his revolt against 
it. A more stolid child might have survived having 
elementary education flogged into him, and a brighter 
child might have escaped it. The unfortunate Samuel, 
however, was evidently rather frail in body, sluggish in 
mind, and acutely sensitive in spirit. A naturally docile 
and affectionate disposition was thus warped by harsh 
and unsympathetic treatment into a defiant, vindictive 
retaliation. 

This flaming sense of injury would probably have 
burnt itself out in due time, had not the second clash 
occurred. Until he graduated from college the youth 
had never even heard of any opposition to the orthodox 
creed nor had an inkling that there was another point of 
view possible. Taking it quite for granted that he was 
to carry on the clerical tradition of the family, the confident 
young neophyte undertook some parish work in London 
as part of his apprenticeship. Actual disconcerting 
experience drove him to first hand study, and the two 
together made an ecclesiastic career impossible. This 
would have been no disaster to him personally, for he 
seems to have come through the ordeal without the dis- 
tress that often accompanies such a change. The trouble 
came from the natural dismay and hostility of his pious 
family. No amount of riotous living could have made 
Samuel more of a prodigal son than his wicked refusal 
to take orders and fulfill his manifest destiny. 

This emotional shock was of course intensified by the 
practical question, if not a clergyman, what then? Here 
there seems to be an attempt at sweet reasonableness on 
both sides. It was not true, as Cannan fippantly ob- 


Introduction Vil 


serves, that failing to be a minister of religion, Samuel 
must become a soldier or sailor. On the contrary the 
alternatives of law or teaching were offered by his father, 
and refused. The youth adrift then gave his four choices 
as medicine (homeopathic), painting, farming in England, 
and emigration, all of which were in turn rejected. Finally 
he obtained a grudging consent to the emigration, and a 
promise of some financial aid. 

The five years of sheep-raising in New Zealand, his 
only experience of working for a living, form the most 
picturesque part of Butler’s life, and also prove his capacity 
for shrewd business judgment and enterprising industry. 
When he had had enough of pioneering he caught the 
market at flood and sold out for a sum that doubled his 
investment. Reinvesting his £8000 at 10%, he left his 
range, the Mesopotamia, where in his cozy cottage he 
had lived with his small staff of helpers, enjoying his 
books, piano, and the robin that “invites himself to break- 
fast and sits pecking at the sugar,’ and with his snug 
little income, returned to London. 

He took an apartment of four rooms at Clifford’s Inn 
and made it his home from 1864 until his death in 1go2. 
He had then nearly forty years of independent leisure— 
threatened only once when he applied in vain for the 
Slade Professorship of Art at Cambridge—which he 
employed in the busiest kind of systematic routine. He 
studied painting, and had a few pictures exhibited at the 
Royal Academy, and one hung in the National Gallery 
of British Art. Four portraits of himself by himself are 
now preserved at Shrewsbury, Cambridge, New Zealand, 
and Tate’s in London. He studied music and in collabora- 
tion with Festing Jones wrote a cantata, “Narcissus,”’ and 
an oratorio, “‘Ulysses.’’ He made several trips abroad, to 
Italy, Sicily, and Greece. And he wrote nearly a score 
of books, representing excursions into art, science, philoso- 
phy, literary criticism, fantastic romance, and realistic 
hetion. 


Vill Introduction 


In the meantime his finances were fluctuating. He had 
transferred his capital to Canadian securities which proved 
insecure, and for about a decade he felt the pinch of pov- 
erty. Then in 1886 the death of his father released his 
share of the estate and gave him an ample income there- 
after. For Butler’s mere living expenses a small amount 
would always have sufhiced, for he was a man of simple 
tastes and no obligations. But he insisted on two luxuries. 
One was the publication of his books. They were not 
of the self-supporting type, with the exception of the two 
““Erewhons.” ‘The rest netted him a loss of over £1000. 

The other extravagance was his friend Mr. Pauli, and 
the story of their association shows an aspect of Butler’s 
personality not seen in any other light,—his power of 
steadfast devotion, amounting to fanatic loyalty. One 
reason for his return to England in 1864 was to bring 
home this new friend, who was ill and penniless. Butler 
paid his passage, secured quarters for him at Clifford’s 
Inn, and settled an annuity on him of £200. This was 
a fourth of his own income, and he continued to pay it 
through the lean years, when his entire capital was reduced 
to £2000. Presently this queer customer, who was evi- 
dently as bored with Butler as Butler was with nearly 
everyone else, moved away, requesting his lonely and 
generous friend not to try to find him. However he con- 
tinued to come to Butler’s home for lunch three times a 
week, and to accept his allowance, making financial hay 
whether the sun shone or not. After nearly thirty-five 
years of this one-sided connection, Butler made the 
pleasant discovery, at the time of Pauli’s death, in 1897, 
that his 1 impecunious pensioner had left an estate of £9000, 
with no mention of his benefactor in his will. It is the 
victim’s comment on the situation that is interesting. 
“TI always hoped,” he wrote, “that as time went on, and 
he saw how absolutely devoted to him I was, and what 
unbounded confidence I had in him, and how I forgave 
him over and over again for treatment I should not have 


Introduction iy 


stood for a moment from anyone else—I always hoped that 
he would soften and deal as frankly and unreservedly 
with me as I with him; but though for some fifteen years 
I hoped this, in the end I gave it up and settled down into 
a resolve to do all I could for him, and to make the best 
of things for him and myself.” Still he was unprepared 
for the news of the financial treachery and confessed that 
he was upset by its iniquity and thankful he had been 
ignorant of it. ‘The only decent end,” he concluded, 
“for such a white heat of devotion as mine was to him 
for so many years was the death of one or the other.” 
Foolish indeed, but pathetic as the revelation of a sur- 
charged, pent-in heart, denied its normal expression; in 
any case hardly the behavoir of a “well-crusted curmud- 
geon, with no charity nor amiability,” as he is diagnosed 
by Paul Elmer More. 

Fortunately for the last quarter century of his life Butler 
had the companionship of another friend, Festing Jones, 
who played the part of a Boswellian hero-worshipper and 
gave his hero the appreciation missed in the unresponsive 
Pauli. But to him also Butler gave £200 a year for his 
time and company. One other man deserves mention as 
Butler’s friend, though his status was that of valet, errand- 
boy and general factotum. This was Alfred Cathie, an 
engaging and capable young Cockney employed from 1887 
to the end of Butler’s life. Alfred would leave a note for 
his employer admonishing him to buy a new hat or there 
would be a terrible scene when he came home; or write 
to Jones to remember to take Butler to the theater, as 
he was getting lonesome. ‘The largest single bequest in 
Butler’s will went to this loyal and efficient servant, his 
main fortune going to his nephew. 

The only other close companionship in this solitary life 
was feminine but Platonic. Miss Eliza Ann Savage was 
a fellow student of Butler’s at the Heatherleigh Art School, 
and from about 1870 to her death in 1885 was his literary 
guide, comforting philosopher, and merry friend. He was 


x Introduction 


well aware that she would gladly have been his wife, but 
admitted that in spite of his ‘‘admiration, respect, grati- 
tude, and compunction,” she bored him almost beyond 
endurance. So she freely gave all he would take, and 
never saw the pair of remorseful sonnets he wrote about 
her after her death. 

Her last note to him gave no hint in its impish mischief 
that she had already entered the shadow. “I write to 
inform you,” she said, ‘‘that I have made twelve kettle 
holders for the Christian Young Women and they are to be 
sold at their bazaar. I am not vindictive,’”’—this a retort 
to some teasing of his about her sewing—“‘but I wish you 
to know that I have made twelve Christian kettle-holders 
to be cast loose on society, like the Twelve Apostles.” 

Butler’s reply to this has a poignant touch of uncon- 
scious irony. He speaks of the death of his brother and 
adds: ‘‘So you see some of us do die sometimes. I don’t 
write on black-edged paper, but next time I write I shall 
use black-edged paper. Those people have died who 
ought not to have died, and those people who ought to 
have died have not died, and there is no sense of propriety 
in them. ‘he same applies to you, only much more.” 
There was no “next time,” for the answer to this was her 
own death. 

Butler’s bachelorhood has been ascribed to his aversion 
to matrimony on principle, but he stated to a friend when 
congratulating him on his marriage that he himself had 
never been in love because his ideal had never appeared, 
though he “could sympathize with those who had found 
the haven wherein their hearts can rest.” At another 
time he wrote: “It is love alone that gives life, and the 
truest life is that which we live not in ourselves but vica- 
riously in others.” It was just that fate played the devil 
with his personal affections from his childhood up, and 
forced him to love impersonal things,—lItaly, Handel’s 
music, Greek epic, and Shakespeare’s sonnets,—and this 
he did with a right good will. 


Introduction xl 


His hates were just as positive, though characteristically 
lavished on whatever was popular or authorized,—“that 
old Pecksniff, Bacon,” “ Dickens’ literary garbage,” 
*“‘the long-winded piece of studied brag, ‘ Middlemarch,’ ” 
Goethe, Carlyle, the Brownings, even the utterly un- 
provoking Charles Lamb,—but much of this is to be 
taken with a pinch of salt, as mocking perversity. 

This impression is confirmed by the trend of personal 
testimony by those who knew the man. MacCarthy 
objects to the Gogin portrait in the National Gallery 
because it “suggests altogether too glossy and sagacious 
a person; ” it has “‘nothing of the literary Ishmaelite about 
it.’ In reality Butler had ‘‘an expression of deliberate 
demureness so disarming that he was able to utter the 
most subversive sentiments without exciting more than 
a moment’s astonishment.” But when amused his coun- 
tenance became “the wild laughing face of an old faun.” 
Nevinson speaks of “the satyr eyes, gleaming with a 
genial malice or malicious cheerfulness, but somehow 
revealing the sensitive shyness and melancholy common 
to humourists and monkeys and other wild animals.” 
And Shanks says that his appearance was “decidedly gro- . 
tesque, that of a difficult, taciturn, maliciously observant 
gnome, roughly carved in a hard wood.” 

It is this temperament, responsive yet lawless, plastic 
yet stubborn, that 1s reflected in all his work. Its very 
variety shows the tangential mind, not well equipped 
with inhibitory brakes. Lacking a consistent unity of 
purpose, not being a self-starter but easily started, Butler 
chased headlong after whatever lure leaped before his 
eager vision. This led to a multiplicity of goals, some of 
them scarcely worth the taking. Hence he became a 
painter who could not paint, a dilettante musician, an 
amateur student of historical art, a heterodox specialist 
in religion, an unlicensed practitioner in science, a guerilla 
outlaw in literary criticism, and an erratic comet in literary 
creation. His career as a writer was the result of initial 


xii Introduction 


encouragement and advice given by a Russian lady and 
an English gentleman, though the push once made, he 
went on swiftly and unflaggingly under his own steam. 

One of Butler’s facetious flourishes was the assertion 
that his reason for writing was, like almost everyone’s, 
in order to have something to read in his old age when he 
could no longer write. But his old age brought no such 
inability, and what is perhaps the most important of his 
writings, his one novel, he never had a chance to read in 
print, for it was not published until the year after’ his 
death. It had been finished for seventeen years, and 
was in the making twelve years before that. It was 
begun in 1873, the year of his mother’s death and com- 
pleted in 1885, the year Miss Savage died. His father’s 
death the very next year removed the original obstacle 
to its publication but after that the author decided to 
postpone it on his sisters’ account. Then after his own 
death, his literary executor, Mr. Streatfeild, determined 
to publish it without further delay. 

No title could be more inappropriate for this autobio- 
graphical novel than ‘‘The Way of All Flesh.” That cap- 
tion suggests a panorama of average existence, a cross-sec- 
tion of typical experience. The common lot is concerned 
chiefly with earning a living, establishing a home, and 
becoming a cog in the civic and social machine. Butler 
repudiated or otherwise escaped all of these elemental 
interests. A more suggestive name for his story would be 
“* A Unique Phenomenon,” or “The Rebel’s Progress.”’ Yet 
it has its fundamental aspects: the conflict between two 
generations, the painful necessity of readjustment to new 
conditions, the value of sincere convictions over imposed 
prejudices, the need for a nice balance between personal 
independence and a tolerant comprehension of others, 
and intelligence as the way of salvation. All these are 
portrayed with the fervor of a crusader by this “first of 
the anti-Victorians.” 

There are to be sure the angry mutterings of rancor and 


Introduction Xi 


recrimination in the recital, but there are also lacrime 
rerum softening the mordant irony and caustic wit. All 
these are better understood in the light of Butler’s candid 
comments on his father, made as late as 1883; “From my 
earliest recollections I can call to mind no time when I 
did not fear him and dislike him; over and over again I 
have relented towards him and said to myself that he was 
a good fellow after all; but [ had hardly done so when he 
would go for me in some way or other which soured me 
again. I have no doubt I have made myself very dis- 
agreeable; certainly I have done many very silly and very 
wrong things; I am not at all sure that the fault is more 
his than mine.” But he concludes, “‘ There can be no real 
peace and contentment for me until either he or I are 
where the wicked cease from troubling.” 

This father, to whom the son wrote cordial enough letters 
from the early school-days on, and to whom he sent speci- 
mens from the Alps for his botanical collection, yet who 
neyer read one of the son’s books, was drawn full length 
as the Reverend Theobald Pontifex. He and his wife 
Christina are the only characters so drawn. The grand- 
father and great-grandfather are a compound of hearsay 
and fancy, and of the former Butler reversed his opinion 
when he came to write his biography. The schoolmaster 
Skinner is probably a fair sketch of Dr. Kennedy; but 
Towneley is Pauli only in his réle as sophisticated man of 
the world, and Alethea is Eliza Savage only by virtue of 
borrowing some of her mirth and wisdom. Butler did 
have an aunt living in Shrewsbury, and a great-aunt in 
Cambridge. 

Many of the episodes are inventions or manipulations 
of the facts; such as Ernest’s ordination, his loss of money 
to an unctuous swindler, the sentence to jail, the affair 
with Ellen, and the beneficent guardian watchfully waiting 
with the happy secret that a pretty fortune was ready for 
the lad when he had learned what money was for, and 
that after a salutary probation his future was secure. 


XIV Introduction 


The device of telling the tale in the first person, the 
narrator being ostensibly an outsider but really the hero 
himself grown to maturity, is a subtle and clever auto- 
biographical touch. It is the man viewing in retrospect 
the youth, partly as he was, partly as he might have been, 
though even in the idealized part there is no hint of a 
real romance. 

Such a ruthless volume as this, frankly tossed as a bomb 
into the cherished Home, set to wreck also the venerated 
Church, demolishing incidentally the honored School, 
with a few random splinters for established Society, could 
not fail to get a reaction. A pair of incidents will illus- 
trate its divergent forms. 

A London lady asked Mr. Jones at dinner for a good 
book to read. He recommended ‘“‘The Way of All Flesh.” 
She replied that she had already begun it but was so 
shocked and disgusted that she threw it into the drawing- 
room fire. Some years later Arnold Bennett asked an 
American publisher at lunch if he knew a novel called 
“The Way of All Flesh.” He replied, “I do. It is one of 
the great novels of the world.” Each one was staggered by 
the enthusiasm of the other. They rose with one accord 
and gravely shook hands over their high congenial taste 
in fiction. 

As this second conversation indicates, the recognition 
of the book was of slow growth. Most of the published 
criticisms are dated between 1910 and 1920, but during 
that decade there is a stream of gathering momentum. 
The English reviews are uniformly approving, with or 
without reservations. The French are eulogistic, seeing 
more of a kindred spirit in the iconoclastic Butler than 
in most of the British. The American, with two or three _ 
exceptions, are warmly appreciative, the exceptions 
coming naturally from the reactionary type of critic, 
scandalized by innovation. 

Butler once made a delightful pun on Homer which 
might be remodeled for his own benefit. ‘‘Homer,” he 


Introduction XV 


said, ‘‘struck oil, while we other writers for the most part 
succeed in boring only.’’ His zealous English admirer,. 
it must be admitted, did considerable boring in his day, 
but at least in his two “‘Erewhons” and ‘The Way of All 


Flesh” he struck oil. 
FRANCES THERESA RUSSELL. 










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1858 


1863 


1862-65 


1872 


1873 


1877 
1879 


1880 
1881 


1886 
1888 


1888-90 
1892 


1896 


1897 
1898 
1899 
1900 
I9OI 
1903 
1904 


1912 


LIST OF BUTLER’S PUBLICATIONS 


Undergraduate skits in The Eagle, magazine of St. 
John’s College. 


A First Year in the Canterbury Settlement. A compi- 
lation of diary, letters, and articles from The Eagle; 
edited and published by his father. 

Contributions to The Christchurch Press, a New Zealand 
paper. 

Erewhon. Developed from previous essays, such as 
Darwin among the Machines, The World of the Unborn, 
and sections from The First Year. 


The Fair Haven. Developed from an article on the 
Resurrection. 


Life and Habit. 


Evolution Old and New. Magazine articles in The 
Examiner. 


Unconscious Memory. 


Alps and Sanctuaries. Record of an art tour in north- 
ern Italy. 


Luck, or Cunning? The last of his four scientific 
Treatises. 


Ex Voto. Sequel to Alps and Sanctuaries. Account 
of Sacro Monte. 


Articles in The Universal Review. 


The Humor of Homer. Originally a lecture at the 
Working Men’s College. 


Life and Letters of Dr. Samuel Butler. Biography of 
his grandfather. 


The Authoress of the Odyssey. 
Translation of The Iliad. 
Shakespeare’s Sonnets Reconsidered. 
Translation of The Odyssey. 
Erewhon Revisited. 

The Way of All Flesh. 


Essays in Life, Art, and Science. Collected from 
magazines. 
Note Books. First published in The New Quarterly, 
1907-I0. 

Xvii 


. BIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM 


Cannan, Gilbert: Samuel Butler, A Critical Study. Martin 
Secker, 1915. 

Harris, J. E.: Samuel Butler, Author of Erewhon. Grant Rich- 
ards, 1916. 

Jones, H. F.: Samuel Butler, Author of Erewhon. A Memoir. 
Macmillan, 1919. 

Jones, E.M. Samuel Butler. Small, Maynard, 1925. 


SEPARATE CHAPTERS OR Essays IN Books 
Bridges, H. J.: Samuel Butler, The Master Satirist, in As I Was 
Saying. 
Duffin, H. C.: Prologue to The Quintessence of Bernard Shaw. 


Figgis, Darrell: 4n Aspect of Samuel Butler, mm Studies and 
Appreciations. 


Fletcher, Jefferson: Samuel Butler, in Cunliffe’s English Litera- 
ture during the Last Half Century. 

MacCarthy, Desmond: Samuel Butler: an Impression, in 
Remnants. 

Sherman, S. P.: The Diogenes of the Victorians, in Points of View. 

Sinclair, May: The Pan-Psychism of Samuel Butler, in A Defense 
of Idealism. 


Yeats, John.: Recollections of Samuel Butler, in Essays, Irish 
and American. 


Bernard Shaw’s well-known eulogies are found in the Prefaces 
to Major Barbara, and Back to Methuselah. 

An interesting reference book is The Samuel Butler Collection 
at St. John’s College, by Jones and Bartholomew. Heffer and 
Sons, 1921. 


XVill 


The Way of All Flesh 





3 


THE WAY OF ALL FLESH 


CHAPRLER 1 


WHEN I was a small boy at the beginning of the century 
I remember an old man who wore knee-breeches and 
worsted stockings, and who used to hobble about the street 
of our village with the help of a stick. He must have been 
getting on for eighty in the year 1807, earlier than which 


date I suppose I can hardly remember him, for I was born 


in 1802. A few white locks hung about his ears, his 
shoulders were bent and his knees feeble, but he was still 
hale, and was much respected in our little world of Pale- 
ham. His name was Pontifex. 

His wife was said to be his master; I have been told she 
brought him a little money, but it cannot have been much. 
She was a tall, square-shouldered person (I have heard my 
father call her a Gothic woman) who had insisted on being 
married to Mr. Pontifex when he was young and too good- 
natured to say nay to any woman who wooed him. The 
pair had lived not unhappily together, for Mr. Pontifex’s 
temper was easy and he soon learned to bow before his 


| wife’ Ss more stormy moods. 


Mr. Pontifex was a carpenter by trade; he was also at 
one time parish clerk; when I remember him, however, 
he had so far risen in life as to be no longer compelled to 
work with his own hands. In his earlier days he had 
taught himself to draw. I do not say he drew well, but 
it was surprising he should draw as well as he did. My 
father, who took the living of Paleham about the year 


ula 1797, became possessed of a good many of old Mr. Ponti- 


fex’s drawings, which were always of local subjects, and 

so unaffectedly painstaking that they might have passed 

for the work of some good early master. I remember 
1 


2 The Way of All Flesh 


them as hanging up framed and glazed in the study at the 
Rectory, and tinted, as all else in the room was tinted, 
with the green reflected from the fringe of ivy leaves that 
grew around the windows. I wonder how they will 
actually cease and come to an end as drawings, and 
into what new phases of being they will then enter. 

Not content with being an artist, Mr. Pontifex must 
needs also be a musician. He built the organ in the church 
with his own hands, and made a smaller one which he kept 
in his own house. He could play as much as he could 
draw, not very well according to professional standards, 
but much better than could have been expected. I my- 
self showed a taste for music at an early age, and old Mr. 
Pontifex on finding it out, as he soon did, became partial 
to me in consequence. 

It may be thought that with so many irons in the fire 
he could hardly be a very thriving man, but this was not 
the case. His father had been a day labourer, and he had 
himself begun life with no other capital than his good 
sense and good constitution; now, however, there was a 
goodly show of timber about his yard, and a look of solid 
comfort over his whole establishment. Towards the close 
of the eighteenth century and not long before my father 
came to Paleham, he had taken a farm of about ninety 
acres, thus making a considerable rise in life. Along with 
the farm there went an old-fashioned but comfortable 
house with a charming garden and an orchard. The 
carpenter's business was now carried on in one of the out- 
houses that had once been part of some conventual build- 
ings, the remains of which could be seen in what was called 
the Abbey Close. The house itself, emblossomed in 
honeysuckles and creeping roses, was an ornament to the 
whole village, nor were its internal arrangements less 
exemplary than its outside was ornamental. Report said 
that Mrs. Pontifex starched the sheets for her best bed, 
and I can well believe it. 

How well do I remember her parlour half filled with the 


The Way of All Flesh 3 


organ which her husband had built, and scented with a 
withered apple or two from the pyrus japonica that grew 
outside the house; the picture of the prize ox over the 
chimney-piece, which Mr. Pontifex himself had painted; 
the transparency of the man coming to show light to a 
coach upon a snowy night, also by Mr. Pontifex; the little 
old man and little old woman who told the weather; the 
china shepherd and shepherdess; the jars of feathery 
flowering grasses with a peacock’s feather or two among 
them to set them off, and the china bowls full of dead rose 
leaves dried with bay salt. All has long since vanished | 
and become a memory, faded but still fragrant to myself. 

Nay, but her kitchen—and the glimpses into a cavernous 
cellar beyond it, wherefrom came gleams from the pale sur- 
faces of milk cans, or it may be of the arms and face of a 
milkmaid skimming the cream; or again her storeroom, 
where among other treasures she kept the famous lip- 
salve which was one of her especial glories, and of which 
she would present a shape yearly to those whom she 
delighted to honour. She wrote out the recipe for this 
and gave it to my mother a year or two before she died, 
but we could never make it as she did. When we were 
children she used sometimes to send her respects to my 
mother, and ask leave for us to come and take tea with 
her. Right well she used to ply us. As for her temper, 
we never met such a delightful old lady in our lives; 
whatever Mr. Pontifex may have had to put up with, 
we had no cause for complaint, and then Mr. Pontifex 
would play to us upon the organ, and we would stand 
round him open-mouthed and think him the most wonder- 
fully clever man that ever was born, except of course our 
papa. 

Mrs. Pontifex had no sense of humour, at least I can 
call to mind no signs of this, but her husband had plenty 
of fun in him, though few would have guessed it from his 
appearance. J remember my father once sent me down to 
his workshop to get some glue, and I happened to come 


4 The Way of All Flesh 


when old Pontifex was in the act of scolding his boy. 
He had got the lad—a pudding-headed fellow—by the ear 
and was saying, “What? Lost again—smothered 0’ 
wit.” (I believe it was the boy who was himself supposed 
to be a wandering soul, and who was thus addressed as 
lost.) “‘Now, look here, my lad,” he continued, “‘some 
boys are born stupid, and thou art one of them; some 
achieve stupidity—that’s thee again, Jim—thou wast 
both born stupid and hast greatly increased thy birth- 
right—and some”’ (and here came a climax during which 
the boy’s head and ear were swayed from side to side) 
“have stupidity thrust upon them, which, if it please the 
Lord, shall not be thy case, my lad, for I will thrust 
stupidity from thee, though I have to box thine ears in 
doing so,” but I did not see that the old man really did 
box Jim’s ears, or do more than pretend to frighten him, 
for the two understood one another perfectly well. An- 
other time I remember hearing him call the village rat- 
catcher by saying, ‘“‘Come hither, thou three-days-and- 
three-nights, thou,” alluding, as I afterwards learned, to 
the rat-catcher’s periods of intoxication; but I will tell 
no more of such trifles. My father’s face would always 
brighten when old Pontifex’s name was mentioned. 
“T tell you, Edward,” he would say to me, “‘old Pontifex 
was not only an able man, but he was one of the very 
ablest men that ever I knew.” 

This was more than | as a young man was prepared to 
stand. ‘‘My dear father,” I answered, “‘what did he do? 
He could draw a little, but could he to save his life have 
got a picture into the Royal Academy exhibition? He 
built two organs and could play the Minuet in Samson on 
one and the March in Scipio on the other; he was a good 
carpenter and a bit of a wag; he was a good old fellow 
enough, but why make him out so much abler than he 
was!” 

“My boy,” returned my father, “you must not judge 
by the work, but by the work in connection with the sur- 


The Way of All Flesh 5 


roundings. Could Giotto or Filippo Lippi, think you, 
have got a picture into the Exhibition? Would a single 
one of those frescoes we went to see when we were at 
Padua have the remotest chance of being hung, if it were 
sent in for exhibition now? Why, the Academy people 
would be so outraged that they would not even write 
to poor Giotto to tell him to come and take his fresco 
away. Phew!” continued he, waxing warm, “if old 
Pontifex had had Cromwell’s chances he would have done 
all that Cromwell did, and have done it better; if he had 
had Giotto’s chances he would have done all that Giotto 
did, and done it no worse; as it was, he was a village 
carpenter, and I will undertake to say he never scamped 
a job in the whole course of his life.” 

“But,” said I, “we cannot judge people with so many 
“ifs. If old Pontifex had lived in Giotto’s time he might 
have been another Giotto, but he did not live in Giotto’s 
time.” 

“T tell you, Edward,” said my father with some severity, 
“we must judge men not so much by what they do, as by. 
what they make us feel that they have it in them to do. 
If a man has done enough, either in painting, music or the 
affairs of life, to make me feel that I might trust him in an 
emergency he has done enough. It is not by what a man 
has actually put upon his canvas, nor yet by the acts 
which he has set down, so to speak, upon the canvas of 
his life that I will judge him, but by what he makes me 
feel that he felt and aimed at. If he has made me feel 
that he felt those things to be lovable which I hold lovable 
myself I ask no more; his grammar may have been im- 
perfect, but still I have understood him; he and I are en 
rapport; and I say again, Edward, that old Pontifex was 
not only an able man, but one of the very ablest men | 
ever knew.” 

Against this there was no more to be said, and my sisters 
eyed me to silence. Somehow or other my sisters always 
did eye me to silence when I[ differed from my father. 


6 The Way of All Flesh 


“Talk of his successful son,” snorted my father, whom 
I had fairly roused. “‘He is not fit to black his father’s 
boots. He has his thousands of pounds a year, while his 
father had perhaps three thousand shillings a year towards 
the end of his life. He zs a successful man; but his father, 
hobbling about Paleham Street in his grey worsted stock- 
ings, broad brimmed hat and brown swallow-tailed coat, 
was worth a hundred of George Pontifexes, for all his 
carriages and horses and the airs he gives himself.” 

“But yet,” he added, “‘George Pontifex is no fool 
either.’ And this brings us to the second generation of 
the Pontifex family with whom we need concern ourselves. 


CHAPTER II 


Oip Mr. Pontifex had married in the year 1750, but for 
fifteen years his wife bore no children. At the end of that 
time Mrs. Pontifex astonished the whole village by show- 
ing unmistakable signs of a disposition to present her 
husband with an heir or heiress. Hers had long ago been 
considered a hopeless case, and when on consulting the 
doctor concerning the meaning of certain symptoms she 
was informed of their significance, she became very angry 
and abused the doctor roundly for talking nonsense. She 
refused to put so much as a piece of thread into a needle 
in anticipation of her confinement and would have been 
absolutely unprepared, if her neighbours had not been 
better judges of her condition than she was, and got things 
ready without telling her anything about it. Perhaps 
she feared Nemesis, though assuredly she knew not who or 
what Nemesis was; perhaps she feared the doctor had made 
a mistake and she should be laughed at; from whatever 
cause, however, her refusal to recognize the obvious arose, 
she certainly refused to recognize it, until one snowy night 
in January the doctor was sent for with all urgent speed 
across the rough country roads. When he arrived he 
found two patients, not one, in need of his assistance, for 


# 


The Way of All Flesh 7 


a boy had been born who was in due time christened 
George, in honour of his then reigning majesty. 

To the best of my belief George Pontifex got the 
greater part of his nature from this obstinate old lady, his 
mother—a mother who though she loved no one else in the 
world except her husband (and him only after a fashion) 
was most tenderly attached to the unexpected child of her 
old age; nevertheless she showed it little. 

The boy grew up into a sturdy bright-eyed little fellow, 
with plenty of intelligence, and perhaps a trifle too great 
readiness at book learning. Being kindly treated at home, 
he was as fond of his father and mother as it was in his 
nature to be of anyone, but he was fond of no one else. 
He had a good healthy sense of meum, and as little of 
tuum as he could help. Brought up much in the open 
air in one of the best situated and healthiest villages in 
England, his little limbs had fair play, and in those days 
children’s brains were not overtasked as they now are;—— 
perhaps it was for this very reason that the boy showed an 
avidity tolearn. At seven or eight years old he could read, 
write and sum better than any other boy of his age in the 
village. My father was not yet rector of Paleham, and 
did not remember George Pontifex’s childhood, but I 
have heard neighbours tell him that the boy was looked 
upon as unusually quick and forward. His father and 
mother were naturally proud of their offspring, and his 
mother was determined that he should one day become 
one of the kings and councillors of the earth. 

It is one thing, however, to resolve that one’s son shall 
win some of life’s larger prizes and another to square 
matters with fortune in this respect. George Pontifex 
might have been brought up as a carpenter and succeeded 
in no other way than as succeeding his father as one of the 
minor magnates of Paleham, and yet have been a more 
truly successful man than he actually was—for I take it 
there is not much more solid success in this world than 
what fell to the lot of old Mr. and Mrs. Pontifex; it hap- 


8 The Way of All Flesh 


pened, however, that about the year 1780, when George 
- was a boy of fifteen, a sister of Mrs. Pontifex’s, who had 
married a Mr. Fairlie, came to pay a few days’ visit at 
Paleham. Mr. Fairlie was a publisher, chiefly of religious 
works, and had an establishment in Paternoster Row; 
he had risen in life, and his wife had risen with him. No 
very close relations had been maintained between the 
sisters for some years, and I forget exactly how it came 
about that Mr. and Mrs. Fairlie were guests in the quiet 
but exceedingly comfortable house of their sister and 
brother-in-law; but for some reason or other the visit was 
paid, and little George soon succeeded in making his way 
into his uncle and aunt’s good graces. A quick, intelli- 
gent boy with a good address, a sound constitution, and 
coming of respectable parents, has a potential value which 
a practised business man who has need of many subor- 
dinates 1s little likely to overlook. Before his visit was 
over Mr. Fairlie proposed to the lad’s father and mother 
that he should put him into his own business, at the same 
time promising that if the boy did well he should not want 
some one to bring him forward. Mrs. Pontifex had her 
son’s interest too much at heart to refuse such an offer, so 
the matter was soon arranged, and about a fortnight after 
the Fairlies had left, George was sent up by coach to Lon- 
don, where he was met by his uncle and aunt, with whom 
it was arranged that he should live. 

This was George’s great start in life. He now wore more 
fashionable clothes than he had yet been accustomed to, 
and any little rusticity of gait or pronunciation which he 
had brought from Paleham, was so quickly and completely 
lost that it was ere long impossible to detect that he had 
. not been born and bred among people of what is commonly 
called education. The boy paid great attention to his 
work, and more than justified the favourable opinion 
which Mr. Fairlie had formed concerning him. Sometimes 
Mr. Fairlie would send him down to Paleham for a few 
days’ holiday, and ere long his parents perceived that he 


The Way of All Flesh 9 


had acquired an air and manner of talking different 
from any that he had taken with him from Paleham. They 
were proud of him, and soon fell into their proper places, 
resigning all appearance of a parental control, for which 
indeed there was no kind of necessity. In return, George 
was always kindly to them, and to the end of his life re- 
tained a more affectionate feeling towards his father and 
mother than I imagine him ever to have felt again for man, 
woman or child. 

George’s visits to Paleham were never long, for the 
distance from London was under fifty miles and there was 
a direct coach, so that the journey was easy; there was 
not time, therefore, for the novelty to wear off either on 
the part of the young man or of his parents. George liked 
the fresh country air and green fields after the darkness to 
which he had been so long accustomed in. Paternoster 
Row, which then, as now, was a narrow gloomy lane rather 
than a street. Independently of the pleasure of seeing 
the familiar faees of the farmers and villagers, he liked also 
being seen and being congratulated on growing up such a 
fine-looking and fortunate young fellow, for he was not the 
youth to hide his hght under a bushel. His uncle had had 
him taught Latin and Greek of an evening; he had taken 
kindly to these languages and had rapidly and easily mas- 
tered what many boys take years in acquiring. I suppose 
his knowledge gave him a self-confidence which made 
itself felt whether he intended it or not; at any rate, he 
soon began to pose as a judge of literature, and from this 
to being a judge of art, architecture, music and every- 
thing else, the path was easy. Like his father, he knew 
the value of money, but he was at once more ostentatious 
and less liberal than his father; while yet a boy he was a 
thorough little man of the world, and did well rather upon 
principles which he had tested by personal experiment, 
and recognized as principles, than from those profounder 
convictions which in his father were so instinctive that he 
could give no account concerning them. 


10 The Way of All fiesi 


His father, as I have said, wondered at him and let him 
alone. His son fairly distanced him, and in an inarticu- 
late way the father knew it perfectly well. After a few years 
he took to wearing his best clothes whenever his son came 
to stay with him, nor would he discard them for his or- 
dinary ones till the young man had returned to London. 
I believe old Mr. Pontifex, along with his pride and affec- 
tion, felt also a certain fear of his son, as though of some- 
thing which he could not thoroughly understand, and 
whose ways, notwithstanding outward agreement, were 
nevertheless not as his ways. Mrs. Pontifex felt nothing 
of this; to her George was pure and absolute perfection, 
and she saw, or thought she saw, with pleasure, that he 
resembled her and her family in feature as well as in dis- 
position rather than her husband and his. 

When George was about twenty-five years old his 
uncle took him into partnership on very liberal terms. 
He had little cause to regret this step. The young man 
infused fresh vigour into a concern that was already vigor- 
ous, and by the time he was thirty found himself in the 
receipt of not less than £1500 a year as his share of the 
profits. Two years later he married a lady about seven 
years younger than himself, who brought him a handsome 
dowry. She died in 1805, when her youngest child Alethea 
was bom, and her husband did not marry again. 


CHAP Tick» IT 


In the early years of the century five little children and 
a couple of nurses began to make periodical visits to Pale- 
ham. It is needless to say they were a rising generation 
of Pontifexes, towards whom the old couple, their grand- 
parents, were as tenderly deferential as they would have 
been to the children of the Lord Lieutenant of the County. 
Their names were Eliza, Maria, John, Theobald (who 
like myself was born in 1802), and Alethea. Mr. Pontifex 
always put the prefix “master” or “miss” before the 


The Way of All Flesh ili 


names of his grandchildren, except in the case of Alethea, 
who was his favourite. To have resisted his grandchildren 
would have been as impossible for him as to have resisted 
his wife; even old Mrs. Pontifex yielded before her son’s 
children, and gave them all manner of licence which she 
would never have allowed even to my sisters and myself, 
who stood next in her regard. Two regulations only they 
must attend to; they must wipe their shoes well on coming 
into the house, and they must not overfeed Mr. Pontifex’s 
organ with wind, nor take the pipes out. 

By us at the Rectory there was no time so much looked 
forward to as the annual visit of the little Pontifexes to 
Paleham. We came in for some of the prevailing licence; 
we went to tea with Mrs. Pontifex to meet her grand- 
children, and then our young friends were asked to the 
Rectory to have tea with us, and we had what we con- 
sidered great times. I fell desperately in love with Alethea, 
indeed we all fell in love with each other, plurality and 
exchange whether of wives or husbands being openly and 
unblushingly advocated in the very presence of our nurses. 
We were very merry, but it is so long ago that I have for- 
gotten nearly everything save that we were very merry. 
Almost the only thing that remains with me as a perma- 
nent impression was the fact that Theobald one day beat 
his nurse and teased her, and when she said she should go 


away cried out, “You shan’t go away—lI’ll keep you on = 


PA lait 
purpose to torment you.” 


~ One winter's morning, however, in the year 1811, we 
heard the Church bell tolling while we were dressing in 
the back nursery and were told it was for old Mrs. Pontifex. 
Our manservant John told us and added with grim levity 
that they were ringing the bell to come and take her away. 
She had had a fit of paralysis which had carried her off 
quite suddenly. It was very shocking, the more so because 
our nurse assured us that if God chose we might all have 
fits of paralysis ourselves that very day and be taken 
straight off to the Day of Judgement. The Day of Judge- 


12 The Way of All Flesh 


ment indeed, according to the opinion of those who were 
most likely to know, would not under any circumstances 
be delayed more than a few years longer, and then the 
whole world would be burned, and we ourselves be con- 
signed to an eternity of torture, unless we mended our 
ways more than we at present seemed at all likely to do. 
All this was so alarming that we fell to screaming and made 
such a hullabaloo that the nurse was obliged for her own 
peace to reassure us. Then we wept, but more composedly, 
as we remembered that there would be no more tea and 
cakes for us now at old Mrs. Pontifex’s. 

On the day of the funeral, however, we had a great 
excitement; old Mr. Pontifex sent round a penny loaf to 
every inhabitant of the village according to a custom still 
not uncommon at the beginning of the century; the loaf 
was called a dole. We had never heard of this custom 
before, besides, though we had often heard of penny 
loaves, we had never before seen one; moreover, they were 
presents to us as inhabitants of the village, and we were 
treated as grown-up people, for our father and mother and 
the servants had each one loaf sent them, but only one. 
We had never yet suspected that we were inhabitants 
at all; finally, the little loaves were new, and we were 
passionately fond of new bread, which we were seldom 
or never allowed to have, as it was supposed not to be good 
for us. Our affection, therefore, for our old friend had to 
stand against the combined attacks of archzological 
interest, the rights of citizenship and property, the pleas- 
antness to the eye and goodness for food of the little 
loaves themselves, and the sense of importance which 
was given us by our having been intimate with someone 
who had actually died. It seemed upon further inquiry 
that there was little reason to anticipate an early death 
for anyone of ourselves, and this being so, we rather liked 
the idea of someone else’s being put away into the church- 
yard; we passed, therefore, in a short time from extreme 
depression to a no less extreme exultation; a new heaven 


The Way of All Flesh 13 


and a new earth had been revealed to us in our perception 
of the possibility of benefiting by the death of our friends, 
and IJ fear that for some time we took an interest in the 
health of everyone in the village whose position rendered a 
repetition of the dole in the least likely. 

Those were the days in which all great things seemed 
far off, and we were astonished to find that Napoleon 
Buonaparte was an actually living person. We had 
thought such a great man could only have lived a very 
long time ago, and here he was after all almost as it were 
at our own doors. ‘This lent colour to the view that the 
Day of Judgement might indeed be nearer than we had 
thought, but nurse said that was all right now, and she 
knew. In those days the snow lay longer and drifted 
deeper in the lanes than it does now, and the milk was 
sometimes brought in frozen in winter, and we were taken 
down into the back kitchen to see it. I suppose there are 
rectories up and down the country now where the milk 
comes in frozen sometimes in winter, and the children 
g0 down to wonder at it, but I never see any frozen milk 
in London, so I suppose the winters are warmer than they 
used to be. 

About one year after his wife’s death Mr. Pontifex also 
was gathered to his fathers. My father saw him the day 
before he died. The old man had a theory about sunsets, 
and had had two steps built up against a wall in the kitchen 
garden on which he used to stand and watch the sun go 
down whenever it was clear. My father came on him in 
the afternoon, just as the sun was setting, and saw him 
with his arms resting on the top of the wall looking to- 
wards the sun over a field through which there was a path 
on which my father was. My father heard him say “‘Good- 
bye, sun; good-bye, sun,” as the sun sank, and saw by his 
tone and manner that he was feeling very feeble. Before 
the next sunset he was gone. 

There was no dole. Some of his grandchildren were 
brought to the funeral and we remonstrated with them, 


14 The Way of All Flesh 


but did not take much by doing so. John Pontifex, who 
was a year older than I was, sneered at penny loaves, and 
intimated that if I wanted one it must be because my 
papa and mamma could not afford to buy me one, whereon 
I believe we did something like fighting, and I rather think 
John Pontifex got the worst of it, but it may have been the 
other way. I remember my sister’s nurse, for I was just 
outgrowing nurses myself, reported the matter to higher 
quarters, and we were all of us put to some ignominy, but 
we had been thoroughly awakened from our dream, and it 
was long enough before we could hear the words “penny 
loaf”? mentioned without our ears tingling with shame. 
If there had been a dozen doles afterwards we should not 
have deigned to touch one of them. 

George Pontifex put up a monument to his parents, a 
plain slab in Paleham church, inscribed with the following 
epitaph :— 

SACRED TO THE Memory 
OF 
JOHN PONTIFEX 
WHO WAS BORN AUGUST I6TH, 1727, AND DIED FEBRUARY 8, 1812, 
IN HIS 85TH YEAR, 
AND OF 
RUTH PONTIFEX, uis Wire, 
WHO WAS BORN OCTOBER 13, 1727, AND DIED JANUARY IO, I8II, 
IN HER 84TH YEAR. 
THEY WERE UNOSTENTATIOUS BUT EXEMPLARY 
IN THEIR DISCHARGE OF THEIR 
RELIGIOUS, MORAL, AND SOCIAL DUTIES. 
THIS MONUMENT WAS PLACED 
BY THEIR ONLY SON. 


CHAPTER IV 


In a year or two more came Waterloo and the European 
peace. Then Mr. George Pontifex went abroad more than 


The Way of All Flesh 15 


once. I remember seeing at Battersby in after years the 
diary which he kept on the first of these occasions. It is a 
characteristic document. I felt as I read it that the author 
before starting had made up his mind to admire only what 
he thought it would be creditable in him to admire, to 
look at nature and art only through the spectacles that 
had been handed down to him by generation after genera- 
tion of prigs and impostors. The first glimpse of Mont 
Blanc threw Mr. Pontifex into a conventional ecstasy. 
“My feelings I cannot express. I gasped, yet hardly 
dared to breathe, as I viewed for the first time the monarch 
of the mountains. I seemed to fancy the genius seated 
on his stupendous throne far above his aspiring brethren 
and in his solitary might defying the universe. I was so 
overcome by my feelings that I was almost bereft of my 
faculties, and would not for worlds have spoken after 
my first exclamation till I found some relief in a gush of 
tears. With pain I tore myself from contemplating for 
the first time ‘at distance dimly seen’ (though I felt as if 
I had sent my soul and eyes after it), this sublime spec- 
tacle.”’ After a nearer view of the Alps from above 
Geneva he walked nine out of the twelve miles of the 
descent: ““My mind and heart were too full to sit still, 
and I found some relief by exhausting my feelings through 
exercise.” In the course of time he reached Chamonix 
and went on a Sunday to the Montanvert to see the Mer 
de Glace. There he wrote the following verses for the 
visitors’ book, which he considered, so he says, “suitable 
to the day and scene” :— 


Lord, while these wonders of thy hand I see, 
My soul in holy reverence bends to thee. 
These awful solitudes, this dread repose, 

Yon pyramid sublime of spotless snows, 

These spiry pinnacles, those smiling plains, 
This sea where one eternal winter reigns, 
These are thy works, and while on them I gaze 
I hear a silent tongue that speaks thy praise. 


16 The Way of All Flesh 


Some poets always begin to get groggy about the knees 
after running for seven or eight lines. Mr. Pontifex’s last 
couplet gave him a lot of trouble, and nearly every word 
has been erased and rewritten once at least. In the 
visitors’ book at the Montanvert, however, he must have 
been obliged to commit himself definitely to one reading 
or another. ‘Taking the verses all round, I should say 
that Mr. Pontifex was right in considering them suitable 
to the day; I don’t like being too hard even on the Mer de 
Glace, so will give no opinion as to whether they are 
suitable to the scene also. 

Mr. Pontifex went on to the Great St. Bernard and there 
he wrote some more verses, this time I am afraid in Latin. 
He also took good care to be properly impressed by the 
Hospice and its situation. ‘The whole of this most ex- 
traordinary journey seemed like a dream, its conclusion es- 
pecially, in gentlemanly society, with every comfort and 
accommodation amidst the rudest rocks and in the region 
of perpetual snow. The thought that I was sleeping in a 
convent and occupied the bed of no less a person than 
Napoleon, that I was in the highest inhabited spot in the 
old world and in a place celebrated in every part of it, 
kept me awake some time.” As a contrast to this, I 
may quote here an extract from a letter written to me last 
year by his grandson Ernest, of whom the reader will hear 
more presently. The passage runs: “I went up to the 
Great St. Bernard and saw the dogs.”” In due course Mr. 
Pontifex found his way into Italy, where the pictures and 
other works of art—those, at least, which were fashion- 
able at that time—threw him into genteel paroxysms of 
admiration. Of the Uffizi Gallery at Florence he writes: 
**T have spent three hours this morning in the gallery and 
I have made up my mind that if of all of the treasures I have 
seen in Italy I were to choose one room it would be the 
Tribune of this gallery. It contains the Venus de’ Medici, 
the Explorator, the Pancratist, the Dancing Faun and a 
fine Apollo. These more than outweigh the Laocoon and 


The Way of All Flesh ig 


the Belvedere Apollo at Rome. It contains, besides, the 
St. John of Raphael and many other chefs-d’euvre of the 
greatest masters in the world.” It is interesting to com- 
pare Mr. Pontifex’s effusions with the rhapsodies of 
critics in our own times. Not long ago a much esteemed 
writer informed the world that he felt “disposed to cry 
out with delight” before a figure by Michael Angelo. I 
wonder whether he would feel disposed to cry out before 
a real Michael Angelo, if the critics had decided that it 
was not genuine, or before a reputed Michael Angelo 
which was really by someone else. But I suppose that a 
prig with more money than brains was much the same sixty 
or seventy years ago as he is now. 

Look at Mendelssohn again about this same Tribune 
on which Mr. Pontifex felt so safe in staking his reputation 
as a man of taste and culture. He feels no less safe and 
writes, “I then went to the Tribune. This room is so de- 
lightfully small you can traverse it in fifteen paces, yet 
contains a world of art. I again sought out my favourite 
arm chair which stands under the statue of the ‘Slave 
whetting his knife’ (L’Arrotino), and taking possession 
of it I enjoyed myself for a couple of hours; for here at 
one glance I had the ‘Madonna del Cardellino,’ Pope 
Julius II., a female portrait by Raphael, and above it a 
lovely Holy Family by Perugino; and so close to me that 
I could have touched it with my hand the Venus de’ 
Medici; beyond, that of Titian. .. . The space between 
is occupied by other pictures of Raphael’s, a portrait by 
Titian, a Domenichino, etc., etc., all these within the cir- 
cumference of a small semi-circle no larger than one of 
your own rooms. ‘This is a spot where a man feels his own 
insignificance and may well learn to be humble.” ‘The 
Tribune is a slippery place for people like Mendelssohn 
to study humility in. They generally take two steps away 
from it for one they take towards it. I wonder how many 
chalks Mendelssohn gave himself for having sat two hours 
on that chair. I wonder how often he looked at his watch 


18 The Way of All Flesh 


to see if his two hours were up. I wonder how often he 
told himself that he was quite as big a gun, if the truth 
were known, as any of the men whose works he saw before 
him, how often he wondered whether any of the visitors 
were recognizing him and admiring him for sitting such a 
long time in the same chair, and how often he was vexed 
at seeing them pass him by and take no notice of him. 
But perhaps if the truth were known his two hours was not 
quite two hours. 

Returning to Mr. Pontifex, whether he liked what he 
believed to be the masterpieces of Greek and Italian art 
or no, he brought back some copies by Italian artists, 
which I have no doubt he satisfied himself would bear the 
strictest examination with the originals. Two of these 
copies fell to Theobald’s share on the division of his father’s 
furniture, and I have often seen them at Battersby on 
my visits to Theobald and his wife. The one was a Ma- 
donna by Sassoferrato with a blue hood over her head 
which threw it half into shadow. The other was a Magda- 
len by Carlo Dolci with a very fine head of hair and a 
marble vase in her hands. When I was a young man I 
used to think these pictures were beautiful, but with each 
successive visit to Battersby I got to dislike them more and 
more and to see “George Pontifex” written all over both 
of them. In the end I ventured after a tentative fashion 
to blow on them a little, but Theobald and his wife were 
up in arms at once. They did not like their father and 
father-in-law, but there could be no question about his 
power and general ability, nor about his having been a 
man of consummate taste both in literature and art— 
indeed the diary he kept during his foreign tour was enough 
to prove this. With one more short extract I will leave 
this diary and proceed with my story. During his stay 
in Florence Mr. Pontifex wrote: ‘‘I have just seen the 
Grand Duke and his family pass by in two carriages and 
six, but little more notice is taken of them than if I, who 
am utterly unknown here, were to pass by.” I don’t ‘ 


The Way of All Flesh 19 


think that he half believed in his being utterly unknown 
in Florence or anywhere else! 


CrlAt Usher: 


ForTUNE, we are told, is a blind and fickle foster-mother, 
who showers her gifts at random upon her nurslings. 
But we do her a grave injustice if we believe such an ac- 
cusation. Trace_a_man’s_career from his cradle—to_his 
grave and mark how Fortune. has-treated-him:—You_will 
find that when he is once dead she can for the most part 
be vindicated from the charge of any but very superfi- 
cial fickleness. Her blindness is the merest fable; she 
can espy her favourites long before they are born. We 
are as days and have had our parents for our yesterdays, 
but through all the fair weather of a clear parental sky 
the eye of Fortune can discern the coming storm, and she 
laughs as she places her favourites it may be in a London 
alley or those whom she is resolved to ruin in kings’ 
palaces. Seldom does she relent towards those whom she 
has suckled unkindly and seldom does she completely 
fail a favoured nursling. 

Was George Pontifex one of Fortune’s favoured nurs- 
lings or not? On the whole I should say that he was not, 
for he did not consider himself so; he was too religious to 
consider Fortune a deity at all; he took whatever she gave 
and never thanked her, being firmly convinced that what- 
ever he got to his own advantage was of his own getting. 
And so it was, after Fortune had made him able to get it. 

“Nos te, nos facimus, Fortuna, deam,” exclaimed the 
poet. “It is we who make thee, Fortune, a goddess’; 
and so it is, after Fortune has made us able to make her. 
The poet says nothing as to the making of the “nos.” 
Perhaps some men are independent of antecedents and 
surroundings and have an initial force within themselves 
which is in no way due to causation; but this is supposed 
to be a difficult question and it may be as well to avoid it. 


20 The Way of Ail Flesh 


Let it suffice that George Pontifex did not consider him- 
self fortunate, and he who does not consider himself 
fortunate is unfortunate. 

True, he was rich, universally respected and of an ex- 
cellent natural constitution. If he had eaten and drunk 
less he would never have known a day’s indisposition. 
Perhaps his main strength lay in the fact that though his 
capacity was a little above the average, it was not too 
much so. It is on this rock that so many clever people 
split. The successful man will see just so much more than 
his neighbours, as they will be able to see too when it is 
shown them, but not enough to puzzle them. It is far 
safer to know too little than too much. People will con- 
demn the one, though they will resent being called upon 
to exert themselves to follow the other. The best example 
of Mr. Pontifex’s good sense in matters connected with his 
business which I can think of at this moment is the rev- 
olution which he effected in the style of advertising works 
published by the firm. When he first became a partner one 
of the firm’s advertisements ran thus:— 


“Books proper to be given away at this Season.— 

“The Pious Country Parishioner, being directions how a Christian 
may manage every day in the course of his whole life with safety and 
success; how to spend the Sabbath Day; what books of the Holy Scrip- 
tures ought to be read first; the whole method of education; collects for 
the most important virtues that adorn the soul: a discourse on the Lord’s 
Supper; rules to set the soul right in sickness; so that in this treatise are 
contained all the rules requisite for salvation. The 8th edition with addi- 
tions. Price rod. 

“# * An allowance will be made to those who give them away.” 


Before he had been many years a partner the advertise- 
ment stood as follows:— 


“The Pious Country Parishioner. A complete manual of Christian 
Devotion. Price tod. 
“A reduction will be made to purchasers for gratuitous distribution.” 


What a stride is made in the foregoing towards the 
modern standard, and what intelligence is involved in 


The Way of All Flesh Q1 


the perception of the unseemliness of the old style, when 
others did not perceive it! 

Where then was the weak place in George Pontifex’s 
armour? I suppose in the fact that he had risen too 
rapidly. It would almost seem as if a transmitted educa- 
tion of some generations is necessary for the due enjoy- 
ment of great wealth. Adversity, if a man is set down to 
it by degrees, is more supportable with equanimity by 
most people than any great prosperity arrived at in a single 
lifetime. Nevertheless a certain kind of good fortune 
generally attends self-made men to the last. It is their 
children of the first, or first and second, generation who 
are in greater danger, for the race can no more repeat its 
most successful performances suddenly and without its 
ebbings and flowings of success than the individual can 
do so, and the more brilliant the success in any one genera- 
tion, the greater as a general rule the subsequent exhaus- 
tion until time has been allowed for recovery. Hence it 
often happens that the grandson of a successful man will 
be more successful than the son—the spirit that actuated 
the grandfather having lain fallow in the son and being 
refreshed by repose so as to be ready for fresh exertion 
in the grandson. A very successful man, moreover, has 
something of the hybrid in him; he is a new animal, aris- 
ing from the coming together of many unfamiliar ele- 
ments and it is well known that the reproduction of ab- 
normal growths, whether animal or vegetable, is irregular 
and not to be depended upon, even when they are not 
absolutely sterile. 

And certainly Mr. Pontifex’s success was exceedingly 
rapid. Only a few years after he had become a partner 
his uncle and aunt both died within a few months of one 
another. It was then found that they had made him their 
heir. He was thus not only sole partner in the business, 
but found himself with a fortune of some £30,000 into the 
bargain, and this was a large sum in those days. Money 
came pouring in upon him, and the faster it came the 


Seer 


22 The Way of All Flesh 


fonder he became of it, though, as he frequently said, 
he valued it not for his own sake, but only as a means of 
providing for his dear children. 

Yet when a man is very fond of his money it is not easy 
for him at all times to be very fond of his children also. 
The two are like God and Mammon. Lord Macaulay 
has a passage in which he contrasts the pleasures which 
a man may derive from books with the inconveniences 
to which he may be put by his acquaintances. “Plato,” 
he says, “is never sullen. Cervantes is never petulant. 
Demosthenes never comes unseasonably. Dante never 
stays too long. No difference of political opinion can 
alienate Cicero. No heresy can excite the horror of Bos- 
suet.” I dare say I might differ from Lord Macaulay 
in my estimate of some of the writers he has named, but 
there can be no disputing his main proposition, namely, 
that we need have no more trouble from any of them than 
we have a mind to, whereas our friends are not always 
so easily disposed of. George Pontifex felt this as regards 
his children and his money. His money was never naughty; 
his money never made noise or litter, and did not spill 
things on the tablecloth at meal times, or leave the door 
open when it went out. His dividends did not quarrel 
‘among themselves, nor was he under any uneasiness lest 
his mortgages should become extravagant on reaching 
manhood ‘and run him up debts which sooner or later he 
should have to pay. There were tendencies in John which 
made him very uneasy, and Theobald, his second son, 
was idle and at times far from truthful. His children 
might, perhaps, have answered, had they known what 
was in their father’s mind, that he did not knock his 
money about as he not infrequently knocked his children. 
He never dealt hastily or pettishly with his money, and 
that was perhaps why he and it got on so well together. 

It must be remembered that at the beginning of the 
nineteenth century the relations between parents and 
children were still far from satisfactory. The violent 


The Way of All Flesh a5 


type of father, as described by Fielding, Richardson, 
Smollett and Sheridan, is now hardly more likely to find 
a place in literature than the original advertisement of 
Messrs. Fairlie & Pontifex’s “‘ Pious Country Parishioner,”’ 
but the type was much too persistent not to have been 
drawn from nature closely. The parents in Miss Austen’s 
novels are less like savage wild beasts than those of her 
predecessors, but she evidently looks upon them with sus- 
picion, and an uneasy feeling that le pére de famille est 
capable de tout makes itself sufficiently apparent throughout 
the greater part of her writings. In the Elizabethan time 
the relations between parents and children seem on the 
whole to have been more kindly. The fathers and the 
sons are for the most part friends in Shakespeare, nor does 
the evil appear to have reached its full abomination till 
a long course of Puritanism had familiarised men’s minds 
with Jewish ideals as those which we should endeavour 
to reproduce in our everyday life. What precedents did 
not Abraham, Jephthah and Jonadab the son of Rechab 
offer? How easy was it to quote and follow them in an 
age when few reasonable men or women doubted that 
every syllable of the Old Testament was taken down 
verbatim from the mouth of God. Moreover, Puritanism 
restricted natural pleasures; it substituted the Jeremiad 
for the Pzan, and it forgot that the poor abuses of all times 
want countenance. 

Mr. Pontifex may have been a little sterner with his 
children than some of his neighbours, but not much. He 
thrashed his boys two or three times a week and some weeks 
a good deal oftener, but in those days fathers were always 
thrashing their boys. It is easy to have juster views 
when everyone else has them, but fortunately or unfortu- 
nately results have nothing whatever to do with the moral 
guilt or blamelessness of him who brings them about; 
they depend solely upon the thing done, whatever it may 
happen to be. The moral guilt or blamelessness in like 
manner has nothing to do with the result; it turns upon 


24 The Way of All Flesh 


the question whether a sufficient number of reasonable 
people placed as the actor was placed would have done 
as the actor has done. At that time it was universally 
admitted that to spare the rod was to spoil the child, and 
St. Paul had placed disobedience to parents in very ugly 
company. If his children did anything which Mr. Ponti- 
fex disliked they were clearly disobedient to their father. 
In this case there was obviously only one course for a 
sensible man to take. It consisted in checking the first 
signs of self-will while his children were too young to offer 
serious resistance. If their wills were “well broken”’ in 
childhood, to use an expression then much in vogue, they 
would acquire habits of obedience which they would not 
venture to break through till they were over twenty- 
one years old. Then they might please themselves; he 
should know how to protect himself; till then he and his 
money were more at their mercy than he liked. 

How little do we know our thoughts—our reflex ac- 
tions indeed, yes; but our reflections! Man, forsooth, 
prides himself on his consciousness! We boast that we 
differ from the winds and waves and falling stones and 
plants, which grow they know not why, and from the 
wandering creatures which go up and down after their 
prey, as we are pleased to say, without the help of reason. 
We know so well what we are doing ourselves and why we 
do it, do we not? I fancy that there is some truth in the 
view which is being put forward nowadays, that it is our 
less conscious thoughts and our less conscious actions 
which mainly mould our lives and the lives of those who 
spring from us. 


CHAPTER VI 


Mr. PontiFEXx was not the man to trouble himself much 
about his motives. People were not so introspective then 
as we are now; they lived more according to a rule of 
thumb. Dr. Arnold had not yet sown that crop of earnest 


The Way of All Flesh 95 


thinkers which we are now harvesting, and men did not 
see why they should not have their own way if no evil 
consequences to themselves seemed likely to follow upon 
their doing so. Then as now, however, they sometimes 
let themselves in for more evil consequences than they had 
bargained for. 

Like other rich men at the beginning of this century he 
ate and drank a good deal more than was enough to keep 
him in health. Even his excellent constitution was not 
proof against a prolonged course of overfeeding and what 
we should now consider overdrinking. His liver would 
not infrequently get out of order, and he would come down 
to breakfast looking yellow about the eyes. ‘Then the 
young people knew that they had better look out. It 
is not as a general rule the eating of sour grapes that causes 
the children’s teeth to be set on edge. Well-to-do parents 
seldom eat many sour grapes; the danger to the children 
lies in the parents eating too many sweet ones. 

I grant that at first sight it seems very unjust, that the 
parents should have the fun and the children be punished 
for it, but young people should remember that for many 
years they were part and parcel of their parents and there- 
fore had a good deal of the fun in the person of their 
parents. If they have forgotten the fun now, that is no 
more than people do who have a headache after having 
been tipsy overnight. The man with a headache does not 
pretend to be a different person from the man who got 
drunk, and claim that it is his self of the preceding night 
and not his self of this morning who should be punished; 
no more should offspring complain of the headache which 
it has earned when in the person of its parents, for the 
continuation of identity, though not so immediately 
apparent, is just as real in one case as in the other. What 
is really hard is when the parents have the fun after the 
children have been born, and the children are punished 
for this. 

On these, his black days, he would take very gloomy 


26 The Way of All Flesh 


views of things and say to himself that in spite of all his 
goodness to them his children did not love him. But who 
can love any man whose liver is out of order? How base, 
he would exclaim to himself, was such ingratitude! How 
especially hard upon himself, who had been such a model 
son, and always honoured and obeyed his parents though 
they had not spent one hundredth part of the money upon 
him which he had lavished upon his own children. “It 
is always the same story,” he would say to himself, “the 
more young people have the more they want, and the less 
thanks one gets; I have made a great mistake; I have been 
far too lenient with my children; never mind, I have done 
my duty by them, and more; if they fail in theirs to me it 
is a matter between God and them. I, at any rate, am 
guiltless. Why, I might have married again and become. 
the father of a second and perhaps more affectionate 
family, etc., etc.” He pitied himself for the expensive 
education which he was giving his children; he did not see 
that the education cost the children far more that it cost 
him, inasmuch as it cost them the power of earning their 
living easily rather than helped them towards it, and en- 
sured their being at the mercy of their father for years 
after they had come to an age when they should be inde- 
pendent. A public school education cuts off a boy’s re- 
treat; he can no longer become a labourer or a mechanic, 
and these are the only people whose tenure of independence 
is not precarious—with the exception of course of those 
who are born inheritors of money or who are placed young 
in some safe and deep groove. Mr. Pontifex saw nothing 
of this; all he saw was that he was spending much more 
money upon his children that the law would have com- 
pelled him to do, and what more could you have? Might 
he not have apprenticed both his sons to greengrocers? 
Might he not even yet do so to-morrow morning if he were 
so minded? The possibility of this course being adopted 
was a favourite topic with him when he was out of temper; 
true, he never did apprentice either of his sons to green- 


The Way of All Flesh Q7 


grocers, but his boys comparing notes together had some- 
times come to the conclusion that they wished he would. 

At other times when not quite well he would have them 
in for the fun of shaking his will at them. He would in 
his imagination cut them all out one after another and 
leave his money to found almshouses, till at last he was 
obliged to put them back, so that he might have the 
pleasure of cutting them out again the next time he was 
in a passion. 

Of course if young people allow their conduct to be in 
any way influenced by regard to the wills of living persons, 
they are doing very wrong and must expect to be sufferers 
in the end; nevertheless, the powers of will-dangling and 
will-shaking are so liable to abuse and are continually 
made so great an engine of torture that I would pass a 
law, if I could, to incapacitate any man from making a 
will for three months from the date of each offence in 
either of the above respects and let the bench of magis- 
trates or judge, before whom he has been convicted, dis- 
pose of his property as they shall think right and reason- 
able if he dies during the time that his will-making power 
is suspended. 

Mr. Pontifex would have the boys into the dining-room. 
“My dear John, my dear Theobald,” he would say, 
“look at me. I began life with nothing but the clothes 
with which my father and mother sent me up to London. 
My father gave me ten shillings and my mother five for 
pocket money and I thought them munificent. I never 
asked my father for a shilling in the whole course of my 
life, nor took aught from him beyond the small sum he 
used to allow me monthly till I was in receipt of a salary. 
I made my own way and I shall expect my sons to do the 
same. Pray don’t take it into your heads that I am going 
to wear my life out making money that my sons may spend 
it forme. If you want money you must make it for your- 
selves as I did, for I give you my word I will not leave a 
penny to either of you unless you show that you deserve it. 


28 The Way of All Flesh 


Young people seem nowadays to expect all kinds of luxu- 
ries and indulgences which were never heard of when I was 
a boy. Why, my father was a common carpenter, and here 
you are both of you at public schools, costing me ever so 
many hundreds a year, while I at your age was plodding 
away behind a desk in my Uncle Fairlie’s counting house. 
What should I not have done if I had had one-half of your 
advantages? You should become dukes or found new 
empires in undiscovered countries, and even then I doubt 
whether you would have done proportionately so much as 
I have done. No, no, I shall see you through school and 
college and then, if you please, you will make your own 
way in the world.” 

In this manner he would work himself up into such a 
state of virtuous indignation that he would sometimes 
thrash the boys then and there upon some pretext invented 
at the moment. 

And yet, as children went, the young Pontifexes were 
fortunate; there would be ten families of young people 
worse off for one better; they ate and drank good whole- 
some food, slept in comfortable beds, had the best doctors 
to attend them when they were ill and the best education 
that could be had for money. The want of fresh air does 
not seem much to affect the happiness of children in a 
London alley: the greater part of them sing and play as 
though they were on a moor in Scotland. So the absence 
of a genial mental atmosphere is not commonly recognized 
by children who have never known it. Young people 
have a marvellous faculty of either dying or adapting 
- themselves to circumstances. Even if they are unhappy— 
very unhappy—it is astonishing how easily they can be 
prevented from finding it out, or at any rate from attribut- 
ing it to any other cause than their own sinfulness. 

- To parents who wish to lead a quiet life I would say: 

Tell your children that they are very naughty—much 
naughtier than most children. Point to the young people 
of some acquaintances as models of perfection and impress 


The Way of All Flesh 29 


your own children with a deep sense of their own inferior- 
ity. You carry so many more guns than they do that 
they cannot fight you. This is called moral influence, 
and it will enable you to bounce them as much as you 
please. They think you know and they will not have yet 
caught you lying often enough to suspect that you are 
not the unworldly and scrupulously truthful person which 
you represent yourself to be; nor yet will they know how 
great a coward you are, nor how soon you will run away, 
if they fight you with persistency and judgement. You 
keep the dice and throw them both for your children and 
yourself. Load them then, for you can easily manage to 
stop your children from examining them. Tell them how 
singularly indulgent you are; insist on the incalculable 
benefit you conferred upon them, firstly in bringing them 
into the world at all, but more particularly in bringing 
them into it as your own children rather than anyone 
else’s. Say that you have their highest interests at stake 
whenever you are out of temper and wish to make your- 
self unpleasant by way of balm to your soul. Harp much 
upon these highest interests. Feed them spiritually upon 
such brimstone and treacle as the late Bishop of Win- 
chester’s Sunday stories. You hold all the trump cards, 
or if you do not you can filch them; if you play them with 
anything like judgement you will find yourselves heads of 
happy, united, God-fearing families, even as did my old 
friend Mr. Pontifex. True, your children will probably 
find out all about it some day, but not until too late to 
be of much service to them or inconvenience to yourself. 

Some satirists have complained of life, inasmuch as all 
the pleasures belong to the fore part of it and we must 
see them dwindle till we are left, it may be, with the 
miseries of a decrepit old age. 

To me it seems that youth is like spring, an overpraised 
season—delightful if it happen to be a favoured one, but 
in practice very rarely favoured and more remarkable, 
as a general rule, for biting east winds than genial breezes. 


30 The Way of All Flesh 


Autumn ts the mellower season, and what we lose in flowers 
we more than gain in fruits. Fontenelle at the age of 
ninety, being asked what was the happiest time of his 
life, said he did not know that he had ever been much 
happier than he then was, but that perhaps his best years 
had been those when he was between fifty-five and seventy- 
five, and Dr. Johnson placed the pleasures of old age far 
higher than those of youth. True, in old age we live 
under the shadow of Death, which, like a sword of Damo- 
cles, may descend at any moment, but we have so long 
found life to be an affair of being rather frightened than 
hurt that we have become like the people who live under 
Vesuvius, and chance it without much misgiving. 


CHAPTER VII 


A FEW words may suffice for the greater number of the 
young people to whom I have been alluding in the fore- 
going chapter. Eliza and Maria, the two elder girls, were 
neither exactly pretty nor exactly plain, and were in all 
respects model young ladies, but Alethea was exceedingly 
pretty and of a lively, affectionate disposition, which was 
in sharp contrast with those of her brothers and sisters. 
There was a trace of her grandfather, not only in her face, 
but in her love of fun, of which her father had none, 
though not without a certain boisterous and rather coarse 
quasi-humour which passed for wit with many. 

John grew up to be a good-looking, gentlemanly fellow, 
with features a trifle too regular and finely chiselled. He 
dressed himself so nicely, had such good address, and 
stuck so steadily to his books that-he became a favourite 
with his masters; he had, however, an instinct for diplo- 
macy, and was less popular with the boys. His father, 
in spite of the lectures he would at times read him, was 
in a way proud of him as he grew older; he saw in him, 
moreover, one who would probably develop into a good 
man of business, and in whose hands the prospects of his. 


The Way of All Flesh 31 


house would not be likely to decline. John knew how to 
humour his father, and was at a comparatively early age. 
admitted to as much of his confidence as it was in his na- 
ture to bestow on anyone. 

His brother Theobald was no match for him, knew it, 
and accepted his fate. He was not so good-looking as 
his brother, nor was his address so good; as a child he had 
been violently passionate; now, however, he was reserved 
and shy, and, I should say, indolent in mind and body. 
He was less tidy than John, less well able to assert him- 
self, and less skilful in humouring the caprices of his 
father. I donot think he could have loved anyone heartily, 
but there was no one in his family circle who did not re- 
press, rather than invite his affection, with the exception 
of his sister Alethea, and she was too quick and lively for 
his somewhat morose temper. He was always the scape- 
goat, and I have sometimes thought he had two fathers 
to contend against—his father and his brother John; a 
third and fourth also might be added in his sisters Eliza 
and Maria. Perhaps if he had felt his bondage very acutely 
he would not have put up with it, but he was constitu- 
tionally timid, and the strong hand of his father knitted 
him into the closest outward harmony with his brother 
and sisters. 

The boys were of use to their father in one respect. 
I mean that he played them off against each other. He 
kept them but poorly supplied with pocket money, and 
to Theobald would urge that the claims of his elder brother 
were naturally paramount, while he insisted to John upon 
the fact that he had a numerous family, and would afhrm 
solemnly that his expenses were so heavy that at his death 
there would be very little to divide. He did not care 
whether they compared notes or no, provided they did 
not do so in his presence. Theobald did not complain 
even behind his father’s back. I knew him as intimately 
as anyone was likely to know him as a child, at school, 
and again at Cambridge, but he very rarely mentioned his 


32 The Way of All Flesh 


father’s name even while his father was alive, and never 
once in my hearing afterwards. At school he was not 
actively disliked, as his brother was, but he was too dull 
and deficient in animal spirits to be popular. 

Before he was well out of his frocks it was settled that 
he was to be a clergyman. It was seemly that Mr. Ponti- 
fex, the well-known publisher of religious books, should 
devote at least one of his sons to the Church; this might 
tend to bring business, or at any rate to keep it in the firm; 
besides, Mr. Pontifex had more or less interest with 
bishops and Church dignitaries and might hope that some 
preferment would be offered to his son through his in- 
fluence. The boy’s future destiny was kept well before 
his eyes from his earliest childhood and was treated as 
a matter which he had already virtually settled by his 
acquiescence. Nevertheless a certain show of freedom 
was allowed him. Mr. Pontifex would say it was only 
right to give a boy his option, and was much too equitable 
to grudge his son whatever benefit he could drive from 
this. He had the greatest horror, he would exclaim, of 
driving any young man into a profession which he did. 
not like. Far be it from him to put pressure upon a son 
of his as regards any profession and much less when so 
sacred a calling as the ministry was concerned. He would 
talk in this way when there were visitors in the house and 
when his son was in the room. He spoke so wisely and so 
well that his listening guests considered him a paragon 
of right-mindedness. He spoke, too, with such emphasis 
and his rosy gills and bald head looked so benevolent that 
it was difhcult not to be carried away by his discourse. 
I believe two or three heads of families in the neighbour- 
hood gave their sons absolute liberty of choice in the mat- 
ter of their professions—and am not sure that they had 
not afterwards considerable cause to regret having done 
so. The visitors, seeing Theobald look shy and wholly 
unmoved by the exhibition of so much consideration for his 
wishes, would remark to themselves that the boy seemed 


The Way of All Flesh 33 


hardly likely to be equal to his father and would set him 
down as an unenthusiastic youth, who ought to have 
more life in him and be more sensible of his advantages 
than he appeared to be. 

No one believed in the righteousness of the whole trans- 
action more firmly than the boy himself; a sense of being 
ill at ease kept him silent, but it was too profound and too 
much without break for him to become fully alive to it, 
and come to an understanding with himself. He feared 
the dark scowl which would come over his father’s face 
upon the slightest opposition. His father’s violent threats, 
or coarse sneers, would not have been taken au sérieux by 
a stronger boy, but Theobald was not a strong boy, and 
rightly or wrongly, gave his father credit for being quite 
ready to carry his threats into execution. Opposition 
had never got him anything he wanted yet, nor indeed had 
yielding, for the matter of that, unless he happened to 
want exactly what his father wanted for him. If he had 
ever entertained thoughts of resistance, he had none 
now, and the power to oppose was so completely lost for 
want of exercise that hardly did the wish remain; there 
was nothing left save dull acquiescence as of an ass crouched 
between two burdens. He may have had an ill-defined 
sense of ideals that were not his actuals; he might occa- 
sionally dream of himself as a soldier or a sailor far away 
in foreign lands, or even as a farmer’s boy upon the wolds, 
but there was not enough in him for there to be any chance 
of his turning his dreams into realities, and he drifted on 
with his stream, which was a slow, and, I am afraid, a 
muddy one. ' 

I think the Church Catechism has a good deal to do 
with the unhappy relations which commonly even now ex- 
ist between parents and children. That work was written 
too exclusively from the parental point of view; the per- 
son who composed it did not get a few children to come 
in and help him; he was clearly not young himself, nor 
should I say it was the work of one who liked children— 


Reem te an, 


34 The Way of All Flesh 


in spite of the words “my good child” which, if I remember 
rightly, are once put into the mouth of the catechist and, 
after all, carry a harsh sound with them. The general 
impression it leaves upon the mind of the young is that 
their wickedness at birth was but very imperfectly wiped 
out at baptism, and that the mere fact of being young 
at all has something with it that savours more or less 
distinctly of the nature of sin. 

If a new edition of the work is ever required, I should 
like to introduce a few words insisting on the duty of 
seeking all reasonable pleasure and avoiding all pain that 
can be honourably avoided. I should like to see children 
taught that they should not say they like things which 
they do not like, merely because certain other people 
say they like them, and how foolish it is to say they be- 
lieve this or that when they understand nothing about it. 
If it be urged that these additions would make the Cate- 
chism too long, I would curtail the remarks upon our 
duty towards our neighbour and upon the sacraments. 
In the place of the paragraph beginning “I desire my Lord 
God our Heavenly Father” I would—but perhaps I had 
better return to Theobald, and leave the recasting of the 
Catechism to abler hands. 


CHAPTER VIII 


Mr. PontiFEx had set his heart on his son’s becoming 
a fellow of a college before he became a clergyman. This 
would provide for him at once and would ensure his get- 
ting a living if none of his father’s ecclesiastical friends 
gave him one. The boy had done just well enough at 
school to render this possible, so he was sent to one of the 
smaller colleges at Cambridge and was at once set to read 
with the best private tutors that could be found. A sys- 
tem of examination had been adopted a year or so before 
Theobald took his degree which had improved his chances 
of a fellowship, for whatever ability he had was classical 


The Way of All Flesh 35 


tather than mathematical, and this system gave more 
encouragement to classical studies than had been given 
hitherto. 

Theobald had the sense to see that he had a chance of 
independence if he worked hard, and he liked the notién 
of becoming a fellow. He therefore applied himself, and 
in the end took a degree which made his getting a fellow- 
ship in all probability a mere question of time. For a 
while Mr. Pontifex, senior, was really pleased, and told 
his son he would present him with the works of any stand- 
ard writer whom he might select. The young man chose 
the works of Bacon, and Bacon accordingly made his 
appearance in ten nicely bound volumes. A little in- 
spection, however, showed that the copy was a second 
hand one. 

Now that he had taken his degree, the next thing to 
look forward to was ordination—about which Theobald 
had thought little hitherto beyond acquiescing in it as 
something that would come as a matter of course some 
day. Now, however, it had actually come and was as- 
serting itself as a thing which should be only a few months 
off, and this rather frightened him, inasmuch as there 
would be no way out of it when he was once in it. He did 
not like the near view of ordination as well as the distant 
one, and even made some feeble efforts to escape, as may 
be perceived by the following correspondence which his 
son Ernest found among his father’s papers written on 
gilt-edged paper, in faded ink, and tied neatly round with 
a piece of tape, but without any note or comment. I have 
altered nothing. The letters are as follows:— 


“My Dear FatuEer—I do not like opening up a ques- 
tion which has been considered settled, but as the time 
approaches I begin to be very doubtful how far I am fitted 
to be a clergyman. Not, I am thankful to say, that I 
have the faintest doubts about the Church of England, 
and I could subscribe cordially to every one of the thirty- 


36 The Way of All Flesh 


nine articles which do indeed appear to me to be the ne 
plus ultra of human wisdom, and Paley, too, leaves no 
loophole for an opponent; but I am sure I should be run- 
ning counter to your wishes if I were to conceal from you 
@fat I-do not feel the inward call to be a minister of the 
gospel that I shall have to say I have felt when the Bishop 
ordains me. | try to get this feeling, I pray for it earnestly 
and sometimes half think that I have got it, but in a little 
time it wears off, and though I have no absolute repug- 
nance to being a clergyman and trust that if I am one I 
shall endeavour to live to the Glory of God and to advance 
His interests upon earth, yet I feel that something more 
than this is wanted before I am fully justified in going 
into the Church. I am aware that I have been a great 
expense to you in spite of my scholarships, but you have 
ever taught me that I should obey my conscience, and my 
conscience tells me I should do wrong if I became a clergy- 
man. God may yet give me the spirit for which I assure 
you I have been and am continually praying, but He may 
not, and in that case would it not be better for me to try 
and look out for something else? I know that neither 
you nor John wish me to go into your business, nor do 
I understand anything about money matters, but is there 
nothing else that I can do? I do not like to ask you to 
maintain me while I go in for medicine or the bar; but when 
I get my fellowship, which should not be long, first, I 
will endeavour to cost you nothing further, and I might 
make a little money by writing or taking pupils. I trust 
you will not think this letter improper; nothing is further 
from my wish than to cause you any uneasiness. I hope 
you will make allowance for my present feelings which, 
indeed, spring from nothing but from that respect for my 
conscience which no one has so often instilled into me as 
yourself. Pray let me have a few lines shortly. I hope 
your cold is better. With love to Eliza and Maria, I 
am, your affectionate son, 
“THEOBALD PONTIFEX.” 


The Way of All Flesh 37 


“DeEAR THEOBALD,—I can enter into your feelings and 
have no wish to quarrel with your expression of them. It 
is quite right and natural that you should feel as you do 
except as regards one passage, the impropriety of which 
you will yourself doubtless feel upon reflection, and to 
which I will not further allude than to say that it hae 
wounded me. You should not have said ‘in spite of my 
scholarships.’ It was only proper that if you could do 
anything to assist me in bearing the heavy burden of your 
education, the money should be, as it was, made over to 
myself. Every line in your letter convinces me that you 
are under the influence of a morbid sensitiveness which 1s 
one of the devil’s favourite devices for luring people to their 
destruction. I have, as you say, been at great expense 
with your education. Nothing has been spared by me to 
give you the advantages, which, as an English gentleman, 
I was anxious to afford my son, but I am not prepared to 
see that expense thrown away and to have to begin again 
from the beginning, merely because you have taken some 
foolish scruples into your head, which you should resist as 
no less unjust to yourself than to me. 

“Don’t give way to that restless desire for change which 
is the bane of so many persons of both sexes at the present 
day. 

“Of course you needn’t be ordained: nobody will com- 
pel you; you are perfectly free; you are twenty-three 
years of age, and should know your own mind; but why 
not have known it sooner, instead of never so much as 
breathing a hint of opposition until I have had all the 
expense of sending you to the University, which I should 
never have done unless I had believed you to have made 
up your mind about taking orders? I have letters from 
you in which you express the most perfect willingness to 
be ordained, and your brother and sisters will bear me out 
in saying that no pressure of any sort has been put upon 
you. You mistake your own mind, and are suffering from 
a nervous timidity which may be very natural but may 


38 The Way of All Flesh 


not the less be pregnant with serious consequences to your- 
self. I am not at all well, and the anxiety occasioned by 
your letter is naturally preying upon me. May God guide 
you to a better judgement.—Your affectionate father, 
““G. PonTIFEX.” 


On the receipt of this letter Theobald plucked up his 
spirits. ‘‘My father,” he said to himself, “‘tells me I need 
not be ordained if I do not like. I do not like, and there- 
fore I will not be ordained. But what was the meaning 
of the words ‘pregnant with serious consequences to your- 
self’? Did there lurk a threat under these words—though 
it was impossible to lay hold of it or of them? Were they 
not intended to produce all the effect of a threat without 
being actually threatening?” 

Theobald knew his father well enough to be little likely 
to misapprehend his meaning, but having ventured so far 
on the path of opposition, and being really anxious to get 
out of being ordained if he could, he determined to venture 
farther. He accordingly wrote the following: 


“My Dear FatHer,—You tell me—and I heartily 
thank you—that no one will compel me to be ordained. I 
knew you would not press ordination upon me if my 
conscience was seriously opposed to it; I have therefore 
resolved on giving up the idea, and believe that if you will 
continue to allow me what you do at present, until I get 
my fellowship, which should not be long, I will then cease 
putting you to further expense. [ will make up my mind 
as soon as possible what profession I will adopt, and will 
let you know at once.—Your affectionate son, 

“THEOBALD PONTIFEX.” 


The remaining letter, written by return of post, must 
now be given. It has the merit of brevity. 


“Dear THEOBALD,—I have received yours. ‘I am at a 
loss to conceive its motive, but am very clear as to its 


The Way of All Flesh 39 


effect. You shall not receive a single sixpence from me 
till you come to your senses. Should you persist in your 
folly and wickedness, I am happy to remember that I have 
yet other children whose conduct I can depend upon to be 
a source of credit and happiness to me.—Your affectionate 
but troubled father, G. PonTIFEX.” — 


I do not know the immediate sequel to the foregoing 
correspondence, but it all came perfectly right in the end. 
Either Theobald’s heart failed him, or he interpreted the 
outward shove which his father gave him, as the inward 
call for which I have no doubt he prayed with great ear- 
nestness—for he was a firm believer in the efficacy of 
prayer. And soam I under certain circumstances. Ten- 
nyson has said that more things are wrought by prayer 
than this world dreams of, but he has wisely refrained from 
saying whether they are good things or bad things. It 
might perhaps be as well if the world were to dream 
of, or even become wide awake to, some of the things 
that are being wrought by prayer. But the question is 
avowedly difficult. In the end Theobald got his fellow- 
ship by a stroke of luck very soon after taking his degree, 
and was ordained in the autumn of the same year, 1825. 


CHAPTER IX 


Mr. ALLABy was rector of Crampsford, a village a few 
miles from Cambridge. He, too, had taken a good degree, 
had got a fellowship, and in the course of time had accepted 
a college living of about £400 a year and a house. His 
private income did not exceed £200 a year. On resigning 
his fellowship he married a woman a good deal younger 
than himself who bore him eleven children, nine of whom— 
two sons and seven daughters—were living. The two 
eldest daughters had married fairly well, but at the time of 
which I am now writing there were still five unmarried, of 
ages varying between thirty and twenty-two—and the 


40 The Way of All Flesh 


sons were neither of them yet off their father’s hands. It 
was plain that if anything were to happen to Mr. Allaby 
the family would be left poorly off, and this made both 
Mr. and Mrs. Allaby as unhappy as it ought to have made 
them. 

Reader, did you ever have an income at best none too 
large, which died with you all except £200 a year? Did 
you ever at the same time have two sons who must be 
started in life somehow, and five daughters still unmarried 
for whom you would only be too thankful to find husbands 
—if you knew how to find them? If morality is that which, 
on the whole, brings a man peace in his declining years— 
if, that is to say, it is not an utter swindle, can you under 
these circumstances flatter yourself that you have led a 
moral life? 

And this, even though your wife has been so good a 
woman that you have not grown tired of her, and has not 
fallen into such ill-health as lowers your own health in 
sympathy; and though your family has grown up vigorous, 
amiable, and blessed with common sense. I know many 
old men and women who are reputed moral, but who are 
living with partners whom they have long ceased to love, 
or who have ugly, disagreeable maiden daughters for whom 
they have never been able to find husbands—daughters 
whom they loathe and by whom they are loathed in secret, 
or sons whose folly or extravagance is a perpetual wear 
and worry to them. Is it moral for a man to have brought 
such things upon himself? Someone should do for morals 
what that old Pecksniff Bacon has obtained the credit of 
having done for science. 

But to return to Mr. and Mrs. Allaby. Mrs. Allaby 
talked about having married two of her daughters as 
though it had been the easiest thing in the world. She 
talked in this way because she heard other mothers do so, 
but in her heart of hearts she did not know how she had 
done it, nor indeed, if it had been her doing at all. First 
there had been a young man in connection with whom she 


The Way of All Flesh 41 


had tried to practise certain manoeuvres which she had 
rehearsed in imagination over and over again, but which 
she found impossible to apply in practice. Then there had 
been weeks of a wurra wurra of hopes and fears and little 
stratagems which as often as not proved injudicious, and 
then somehow or other in the end, there lay the young man 
bound and with an arrow through his heart at her daugh- 
ters feet. It seemed to her to be all a fluke which she 
could have little or no hope of repeating. She had indeed 
repeated it once, and might perhaps with good luck repeat 
it yet once again—but five times over! It was awful: why 
she would rather have three confinements than go through 
the wear and tear of marrying a single daughter. 

Nevertheless it had got to be done, and poor Mrs. 
Allaby never looked at a young man without an eye to his 
being a future son-in-law. Papas and mammas sometimes 
ask young men whether their intentions are honourable 
towards their daughters. I think young men might oc- 
casionally ask papas and mammas whether their intentions 
are honourable before they accept invitations to houses 
where there are still unmarried daughters. 

“I can’t afford a curate, my dear,” said Mr. Allaby 
to his wife when the pair were discussing what was next 
to be done. “It will be better to get some young man to 
come and help me for a time upon a Sunday. A guinea 
a Sunday will do this, and we can chop and change till 
we get someone who suits.” So it was settled that Mr. 
Allaby’s health was not so strong as it had been, and 
that he stood in need of help in the performance of his 
Sunday duty. 

Mrs. Allaby had a great friend—a certain Mrs. Cowey, 


wife of the celebrated Professor Cowey. She was what — 


was called a truly spiritually minded woman, a trifle portly, 
with an incipient beard, and an extensive connection 
among undergraduates, more especially among those who 
were inclined to take part in the great evangelical move- 
ment which was then at its height. She gave evening 


42 The Way of All Flesh 


parties once a fortnight at which prayer was part of the 
entertainment. She was not only spiritually minded, but, 
as enthusiastic Mrs. Allaby used to exclaim, she was a thor- 
ough woman of the world at the same time and had such 
a fund of strong masculine good sense. She too had daugh- 
ters, but, as she used to say to Mrs. Allaby, she had been 
less fortunate than Mrs. Allaby herself, for one by one 
they had married and left her, so that her old age would 
have been desolate indeed if her Professor had not been 
spared to her. 

Mrs. Cowey, of course, knew the run of all the bachelor 
clergy in the University, and was the very person to assist 
Mrs. Allaby in finding an eligible assistant for her hus- 
band, so this last named lady drove over one morning in 
the November of 1825, by arrangement, to take an early 
dinner with Mrs. Cowey and spend the afternoon. After 
dinner the two ladies retired together, and the business 
of the day began. How they fenced, how they saw through 
one another, with what loyalty they pretended not to see 
through one another, with what gentle dalliance they pro- 
longed the conversation discussing the spiritual fitness of 
this or that deacon, and the other pros and cons connected 
with him after his spiritual fitness had been disposed of, 
all this must be left to the imagination of the reader. Mrs. 
Cowey had been so accustomed to scheming on her own 
account that she would scheme for anyone rather than not 
scheme at all. Many mothers turned to her in their hour 
of need and, provided they were spiritually minded, Mrs. 
Cowey never failed to do her best for them; if the marriage 
of a young Bachelor of Arts was not made in Heaven, it 
was probably made, or at any rate attempted, in Mrs. 
Cowey’s drawing-room. On the present occasion all the 
deacons of the University in whom there lurked any spark 
of promise were exhaustively discussed, and the upshot 
was that our friend Theobald was declared by Mrs. Cowey 
to be about the best thing she could do that afternoon. 

“T don’t know that he’s a particularly fascinating young 


The Way of All Flesh 43 
man, my dear,” said Mrs. Cowey, ‘“‘and he’s only a sec- 
ond son, but then he’s got his fellowship, and even the 
second son of such a man as Mr. Pontifex, the publisher, 
should have something very comfortable.” 

“Why, yes, my dear,” rejoined Mrs. Allaby compla- 
cently, “‘that’s what one rather feels.” 


CHAPTER X 


THE interview, like all other good things, had to come to 
an end; the days were short, and Mrs. Allaby had a six 
miles’ drive to Crampsford. When she was muffled up and 
had taken her seat, Mr. Allaby’s factotum, James, could 
perceive no change in her appearance, and little knew what 
a series of delighted visions he was driving home along 
with his mistress. 

Professor Cowey had published works through Theo- 
bald’s father, and Theobald had on this account been 
taken in tow by Mrs. Cowey from the beginning of his 
University career. She had had an eye upon him for 
some time past, and almost as much felt it her duty to 
get him off her list of young men for whom wives had 
to be provided, as poor Mrs. Allaby did to try and get a 
husband for one of her daughters. She now wrote and 
asked him to come and see her, in terms that awakened his 
curiosity. When he came she broached the subject of Mr. 
Allaby’s failing health, and after the smoothing away 
of such difficulties as were only Mrs. Cowey’s due, con- 
sidering the interest she had taken, it was allowed to 
come to pass that Theobald should go to Crampsford 
for six successive Sundays and take the half of Mr. Allaby’s 
duty at half a guinea a Sunday, for Mrs. Cowey cut down 
the usual stipend mercilessly, and Theobald was not 
strong enough to resist. 

Ignorant of the plots which were being prepared for 
his peace of mind and with no idea beyond that of earning 
his three guineas, and perhaps of astonishing the inhabit- 


AA, The Way of All Flesh 


ants of Crampsford by his academic learning, Theobald 
walked over to the Rectory one Sunday morning early 
in December—a few weeks only after he had been ordained. 
He had taken a great deal of pains with his sermon, which 
was on the subject of geology—then coming to the fore 
as a theological bugbear. He showed that so far as 
geology was worth anything at all—and he was too lib- 
eral entirely to pooh-pooh it—it confirmed the absolutely 
historical character of the Mosaic account of the Crea- 
tion as given in Genesis. Any phenomena which at first 
sight appeared to make against this view were only partial 
phenomena and broke down upon investigation. Nothing 
could be in more excellent taste, and when Theobald 
adjourned to the Rectory, where he was to dine between 
the services, Mr. Allaby complimented him warmly upon 
his début, while the ladies of the family could hardly find 
words with which to express their admiration. 

Theobald knew nothing about women. The only women 
he had been thrown in contact with were his sisters, two 
of whom were always correcting him, and a few school 
friends whom these had got their father to ask to Elm- 
hurst. These young ladies had either been so shy that 
they and Theobald had never amalgamated, or they had 
been supposed to be clever and had said smart things to 
him. He did not say smart things himself and did not 
want other people to say them. Besides, they talked about 
music—and he hated music—or pictures—and he hated 
pictures—or books—and except the classics he hated 
books. And then sometimes he was wanted to dance with 
them, and he did not know how to dance, and did not 
want to know. 

At Mrs. Cowey’s parties again he had seen some young 
ladies and had been introduced to them. He had tried to 
make himself agreeable, but was always left with the im- 
pression that he had not been successful. The young 
ladies of Mrs. Cowey’s set were by no means the most 
attractive that might have been found in the University, 


The Way of All Flesh 45 


and Theobald may be excused for not losing his heart to 
the greater number of them, while if for a minute or two 
he was thrown in with one of the prettier and more agree- 
able girls he was almost immediately cut out by someone 
less bashful than himself, and sneaked off, feeling, as far 
as the fair sex was concerned, like the impotent man at 
the pool of Bethesda. 

What a really nice girl might have done with him I 
cannot tell, but fate had thrown none such in his way 
except his youngest sister Alethea, whom he might per- 
haps have liked if she had not been his sister. The result 
of his experience was that women had never done him 
any good and he was not accustomed to associate them 
with any pleasure; if there was a part of Hamlet in con- 
nection with them it had been so completely cut out in 
the edition of the play in which he was required to act that 
he had come to disbelieve in its existence. As for kissing, 
he had never kissed a woman in his life except his sister— 
and my own sisters when we were all small children to- 
gether. Over and above these kisses, he had until quite 
lately been required to imprint a solemn, flabby kiss night 
and morning upon his father’s cheek, and this, to the best 
of my belief, was the extent of Theobald’s knowledge in 
the matter of kissing, at the time of which I am now writ- 
ing. The result of the foregoing was that he had come to 
dislike women, as mysterious beings whose ways were not 
as his ways, nor their thoughts as his thoughts. 

With these antecedents, Theobald naturally felt rather 
bashful on finding himself the admired of five strange young 
ladies. I remember when I[ was a boy myself I was once 
asked to take tea at a girls’ school where one of my sisters 
was boarding. I was then about twelve years old. Every- 
thing went off well during tea-time, for the Lady Principal 
of the establishment was present. But there came a time 
when she went away and I was left alone with the girls. 
The moment the mistress’s back was turned the head girl, 
who was about my own age, came up, pointed her finger at 


46 The Way of All Flesh 


me, made a face and said solemnly, “A na-a-sty bo-o-y!”’ 
All the girls followed her in rotation making the same ges- 
ture and the same reproach upon my being a boy. It 
gave me a scare. I believe I cried, and I know it was a 
long time before I could again face a girl without a strong 
desire to run away. 

Theobald felt at first much as I had myself done at the 
girls’ school, but the Miss Allabys did not tell him he was 
a nasty bo-o-oy. Their papa and mamma were so cordial 
and they themselves lifted him so deftly over conversa- 
tional stiles that before dinner was over Theobald thought 
the family to be a really very charming one, and felt as 
though he were being appreciated in a way to which he 
had not hitherto been accustomed. 

With dinner his shyness wore off. He was by no means 
plain, his academic prestige was very fair. There was 
nothing about him to lay hold of as unconventional or ridic- 
ulous; the impression he created upon the young ladies was 
quite as favourable as that which they had created upon 
himself; for they knew not much more about men than 
he about women. 

As soon as he was gone, the harmony of the establish- 
ment was broken by a storm which arose upon the ques- 
tion which of them it should be who should become Mrs. 
Pontifex. “‘My dears,” said their father, when he saw 
that they did not seem likely to settle the matter among 
themselves, “wait till to-morrow, and than play at cards 
for him.” Having said which he retired to his study, 
where he took a nightly glass of whisky and a pipe of to- 
bacco. 


CHAPTER XI 


THE next morning saw Theobald in his rooms coaching 
a pupil, and the Miss Allabys in the eldest Miss Allaby’s 
bedroom playing at cards, with Theobald for the stakes. 

The winner was Christina, the second unmarried daugh- 


The Way of All Flesh 47 


ter, then just twenty-seven years old and therefore four 
years older than Theobald. The younger sisters complained 
that it was throwing a husband away to let Christina try 
and catch him, for she was so much older that she had no 
chance; but Christina showed fight in a way not usual 
with her, for she was by nature yielding and good tempered. 
Her mother thought it better to back her up, so the two 
dangerous ones were packed off then and there on visits 
to friends some way off, and those alone allowed to remain 
at home whose loyalty could be depended upon. ‘The 
brothers did not even suspect what was going on and be- 
lieved their father’s getting assistance was because he 
really wanted it. 

The sisters who remained at home kept their words and 
gave Christina all the help they could, for over and above 
their sense of fair play they reflected that the sooner Theo- 
bald was landed, the sooner another deacon might be sent 
for who might be won by themselves. So quickly was all 
managed that the two unreliable sisters were actually out 
of the house before Theobald’s next visit—which was on 
the Sunday following his first. 

This time Theobald felt quite at home in the house of 
his new friends—for so Mrs. Allaby insisted that he should 
call them. She took, she said, such a motherly interest 
in young men, especially in clergymen. Theobald believed 
every word she said, as he had believed his father and all 
his elders from his youth up. Christina sat next him at 
dinner and played her cards no less judiciously than she 
had played them in her sister’s bedroom. She smiled 
(and her smile was one of her strong points) whenever he 
spoke to her; she went through all her little artlessnesses 
and set forth all her little wares in what she believed to 
be their most taking aspect. Who can blame her? Theo- 
bald was not the ideal she had dreamed of when reading 
Byron upstairs with her sisters, but he was an actual 
within the bounds of possibility, and after all not a bad 
actual as actuals went. What else could she do? Run 


48 The Way of All Flesh 


away? She dared not. Marry beneath her and be con- 
sidered a disgrace to her family? She dared not. Remain 
at home and become an old maid and be laughed at? Not 
if she could help it. She did the only thing that could 
reasonably be expected. She was drowning; Theobald 
might be only a straw, but she could catch at him, and 
catch at him she accordingly did. 

If the course of true love never runs smooth, the course 
of true match-making sometimes does so. The only ground 
for complaint in the present case was that it was rather 
slow. Theobald fell into the part assigned to him more 
easily than Mrs. Cowey and Mrs. Allaby had dared to 
hope. He was softened by Christina’s winning manners: 
he admired the high moral tone of everything she said; her 
sweetness towards her sisters and her father and mother, 
her readiness to undertake any small burden which 
no one else seemed willing to undertake, her sprightly 
manners, all were fascinating to one who, though unused 
to woman’s society, was still a human being. He was 
flattered by her unobtrusive but obviously sincere ad- 
miration for himself; she seemed to see him in a more 
favourable light, and to understand him better than any- 
one outside of this charming family had ever done. In- 
stead of snubbing him as his father, brother and sisters 
did, she drew him out, listened attentively to all he chose 
to say, and evidently wanted him to say still more. He 
told a college friend that he knew he was in love now; 
he really was, for he liked Miss Allaby’s society much 
better than that of his sisters. 

Over and above the recommendations already enumer- 
ated, she had another in the possession of what was sup- 
posed to be a very beautiful contralto voice. Her voice 
was certainly contralto, for she could not reach higher 
than D in the treble; its only defect was that it did not go 
correspondingly low in the bass: in those days, however, 
a contralto voice was understood to include even a ‘so- 
prano if the soprano could not reach soprano notes, and it 


The Way of All Flesh 49 


was not necessary that it should have the quality which we 
now assign to contralto. What her voice wanted in range 
and power was made up in the feeling with which she 
sang. She had transposed “Angels ever bright and fair” 
into a lower key, so as to make it suit her voice, thus prov- 
ing, as her mamma said, that she had a thorough knowl- 
edge of the laws of harmony; not only did she do this, but 
at every pause she added an embellishment of arpeggios 
from one end to the other of the keyboard, on a principle 
which her governess had taught her; she thus added life 
and interest to an air which everyone—so she said—must 
feel to be rather heavy in the form in which Handel left 
it. As for her governess, she indeed had been a rarely ac- 
complished musician: she was a pupil of the famous Dr. 
Clarke of Cambridge, and used to play the overture to 
Atalanta, arranged by Mazzinghi. Nevertheless, it was 
some time before Theobald could bring his courage to the 
sticking point of actually proposing. He made it quite 
clear that he believed himself to be much smitten, but 
month after month went by, during which there was still 
so much hope in Theobald that Mr. Allaby dared not 
discover that he was able to do his duty for himself, and 
was getting impatient at the number of half-guineas he 
was disbursing—and yet there was no proposal. Chris- 
tina’s mother assured him that she was the best daughter 
in the whole world, and would be a priceless treasure to the 
man who married her. Theobald echoed Mrs. Allaby’s 
sentiments with warmth, but still, though he visited the 
Rectory two or three times a week, besides coming over on 
Sundays—he did not propose. “She is heart-whole yet, 
dear Mr. Pontifex,” said Mrs. Allaby, one day, “‘at least 
I believe she is. It is not for want of admirers—oh! no— 
she has had her full share of these, but she is too, too diffi- 
cult to please. I think, however, she would fall before a 
great and good man.” And she looked hard at Theobald, 
who blushed; but the days went by and still he did not 
propose. 


50 The Way of All Flesh 


Another time Theobald actually took Mrs. Cowey into 
his confidence, and the reader may guess what account of 
Christina he got from her. Mrs. Cowey tried the jealousy 
manceuvre and hinted at a possible rival. ‘Theobald was, 
or pretended to be, very much alarmed; a little rudimen- 
tary pang of jealousy shot across his bosom and he began 
to believe with pride that he was not only in love, but 
desperately in love, or he would never feel so jealous. 
Nevertheless, day after day still went by and he did not 
propose. 

The Allabys behaved with great judgement. They 
humoured him till his retreat was practically cut off, 
though he still flattered himself that it was open. One day 
about six months after Theobald had become an almost 
daily visitor at the Rectory the conversation happened to 
turn upon long engagements. “I don’t like long engage- 
ments, Mr. Allaby, do you?” said Theobald imprudently. 
“No,” said Mr. Allaby in a pointed tone, “nor long 
courtships,” and he gave Theobald a look which he could 
not pretend to misunderstand. He went back to Cam- 
bridge as fast as he could go, and in dread of the conversa- 
tion with Mr. Allaby which he felt to be impending, com- 
posed the following letter which he despatched that same 
afternoon by a private messenger to Crampsford. The 
letter was as follows:— 


“Dearest Miss Curistina,—I do not know whether 
you have guessed the feelings that I have long entertained 
for you—feelings which I have concealed as much as I 
could through fear of drawing you into an engagement 
which, if you enter into it, must be prolonged for a consid- 
erable time, but, however this may be, it is out of my 
power to conceal them longer; I love you, ardently, devot- 
edly, and send these few lines asking you to be my wife, 
because I dare not trust my tongue to give adequate ex- 
pression to the magnitude of my affection for you. 

“T cannot pretend to offer you a heart which has never 


The Way of All Flesh 51 


known either love or disappointment. I have loved al- 
ready, and my heart was years in recovering from the 
grief I felt at seeing her become another’s. That, how- 
ever, is over, and having seen yourself I rejoice over a 
disappointment which I thought at one time would have 
been fatal to me. It has left me a less ardent lover than 
I should perhaps otherwise have been, but it has increased 
tenfold my power of appreciating your many charms and 
my desire that you should become my wife. Please let me 
have a few lines of answer by the bearer to let me know 
whether or not my suit is accepted. If you accept me I 
will at once come and talk the matter over with Mr. and 


Mrs. Allaby, whom I shall hope one day to be allowed to 


call father and mother. 


“T ought to warn you that in the event of your consent- 


ing to be my wife it may be years before our union can 
be consummated, for I cannot marry till a college liv- 
ing is offered me. If, therefore, you see fit to reject 
me, I shall be grieved rather than surprised.—Ever most 
devotedly yours, THEOBALD PoNTIFEX.”’ 


And this was all that his public school and University 
education had been able to do for Theobald! Neverthe- 
less for his own part he thought his letter rather a good 
one, and congratulated himself in particular upon his clev- 
erness in inventing the story of a previous attachment, 
behind which he intended to shelter himself if Christina 
should complain of any lack of fervour in his behaviour 
to her. 

I need not give Christina’s answer, which of course was 
to accept. Much as Theobald feared old Mr. Allaby I do 
not think he would have wrought up his courage to the 
point of actually proposing but for the fact of the engage- 
ment being necessarily a long one, during which a dozen 
things might turn up to break it off. However much he 
may have disapproved of long engagements for other 
people, I doubt whether he had any particular objection 


‘iis The Way of All Flesh 


to them in his own case. A pair of lovers are like sunset 
and sunrise: there are such things every day but we very 
seldom see them. Theobald posed as the most ardent lover 
imaginable, but, to use the vulgarism for the moment in 
fashion, it was all ‘‘side.”? Christina was in love, as indeed 
she had been twenty times already. But then Christina 
was impressionable and could not even hear the name “Mis- 
solonghi” mentioned without bursting into tears. When 
Theobald accidentally left his sermon case behind him 
one Sunday, she slept with it in her bosom and was forlorn 
when she had as it were to disgorge it on the following Sun- 
day; but I do not think Theobald ever took so much as an 
old toothbrush of Christina’s to bed with him. Why, I 
knew a young man once who got hold of his mistress’s 
skates and slept with them for a fortnight and cried when 
he had to give them up. 


CHAPTER XII 


THEOBALD’s engagement was all very well as far as it went, 
but there was an old gentleman with a bald head and rosy 
cheeks in a counting-house in Paternoster Row who must 
sooner or later be told of what his son had in view, and 
Theobald’s heart fluttered when he asked himself what 
view this old gentleman was likely to take. of the situation. 
The murder, however, had to come out, and Theobald 
and his intended, perhaps imprudently, resolved on making 
a clean breast of it at once. He wrote what he and Chris- 
tina, who helped him to draft the letter, thought to be 
everything that was filial, and expressed himself as anx- 
ious to be married with the least possible delay. He could 
not help saying this, as Christina was at his shoulder, and 
he knew it was safe, for his father might be trusted not 
to help him. He wound up by asking his father to use any 
influence that might be at his command to help him to get 
a living, inasmuch as it might be years before a college 
living fell vacant, and he saw no other chance of being 


The Way of All Flesh 53 


able to marry, for neither he nor his intended had any 


money except Theobald’s fellowship, which would, of ~ 


course, lapse on his taking a wife. 

Any step of Theobald’s was sure to be objectionable in 
his father’s eyes, but that at three-and-twenty he should 
want to marry a penniless girl who was four years older 
than himself, afforded a golden opportunity which the old 
gentleman—for so I may now call him, as he was at least 
sixty—embraced with characteristic eagerness. 

“The ineffable folly,”” he wrote, on receiving his son’s 
letter, “of your fancied passion for Miss Allaby fills me 
with the gravest apprehensions. Making every allowance 
for a lover’s blindness, I still have no doubt that the lady 
herself is a well-conducted and amiable young person, who 
would not disgrace our family, but were she ten times more 
desirable as a daughter-in-law than I can allow myself to 
hope, your joint poverty is an insuperable objection to 
your marriage. I have four other children besides your- 
self, and my expenses do not permit me to save money. 
This year they have been especially heavy, indeed I have 
had to purchase two not inconsiderable pieces of land 
which happened to come into the market and were neces- 
sary to complete a property which I have long wanted to 
round off in this way. I gave you an education regardless 
of expense, which has put you.in a possession of a comfort- 
able income, at an age when many young men are depend- 
ent. I have thus started you fairly in life, and may claim 
that you should cease to be a drag upon me further. Long 
engagements are proverbially unsatisfactory, and in the 
present case the prospect seems interminable. What in- 
terest, pray, do you suppose I have that I could get a liv- 
ing for you? Can I go up and down the country begging 
people to provide for my son because he has taken it into 
his head to want to get married without sufficient means? 

“T do not wish to write unkindly, nothing can be far- 
ther from my real feelings towards you, but there is often 
more kindness in plain speaking than in any amount of 


54 The Way of All Flesh 


soft words which can end in no substantial performance. 
Of course, I bear in mind that you are of age, and can 
therefore please yourself, but if you choose to claim the 
strict letter of the law, and act without consideration for 
your father’s feelings, you must not be surprised if you one 
day find that I have claimed a like liberty for myself.— 
Believe me, your affectionate father, |G. PonTiFEx.” 


I found this letter along with those already given and 
a few more which I need not give, but throughout which 
the same tone prevails, and in all of which there is the 
more or less obvious shake of the will near the end of the 
letter. Remembering Theobald’s general dumbness con- 
cerning his father for the many years I knew him after his 
father’s death, there was an eloquence in the preservation 
of the letters and in their endorsement, “Letters from my 
father,”’ which seemed to have with it some faint odour of 
health and nature. 

Theobald did not show his father’s letter to Christina, 
nor, indeed, I believe to anyone. He was by nature secre- 
tive, and had been repressed too much and too early to be 
capable of railing or blowing off steam where his father was 
concerned. His sense of wrong was still inarticulate, felt 
as a dull, dead weight ever present day by day, and if he 
woke at night-time still continually present, but he hardly 
knew what it was. I was about the closest friend he had, 
and I saw but little of him, for I could not get on with him 
for long together. He said I had no reverence; whereas, 
I thought that I had plenty of reverence for what deserved 
to be revered, but that the gods which he deemed golden 
‘were in reality made of baser metal. He never, as I have 
said, complained of his father to me, and his only other 
friends were, like himself, staid and prim, of evangelical 
tendencies, and deeply imbued with a sense of the sinful- 
ness of any act of insubordination to parents—good young 
men, in fact—and one cannot blow off steam to a good 
young man. 


The Way of All Flesh 55 


When Christina was informed by her lover of his father’s 
opposition, and of the time which must probably elapse 
before they could be married, she offered—with how much 
sincerity I know not—to set him free from his engagement; 
but Theobald declined to be released—‘‘not at least,”’as he 
said, “at present.”’ Christina and Mrs. Allaby knew they 
could manage him, and on this not very satisfactory foot- 
ing the engagement was continued. 

His engagement and his refusal to be released at once 
raised Theobald in his own good opinion. Dull as he 
was, he had no small share of quiet self-approbation. He 
admired himself for his University distinction, for the pu- 
rity of his life (I said of him once that if he had only a better 
temper he would be as innocent as a new-laid egg) and 
for his unimpeachable integrity in money matters. He did 
not despair of advancement in the Church when he had 
once got a living, and of course it was within the bounds 
of possibility that he might one day become a Bishop, and 
Christina said she felt convinced that this would ulti- 
mately be the case. 

As was natural for the daughter and intended wife of a 
clergyman, Christina’s thoughts ran much upon religion, 
and she was resolved that even though an exalted position 
in this world were denied to her and Theobald, their vir- 
tues should be fully appreciated in the next. Her religious 
opinions coincided absolutely with Theobald’s own, and 
many a conversation did she have with him about the glory 
of God, and the completeness with which they would de- 
vote themselves to it, as soon as Theobald had got his liv- 
ing and they were married. So certain was she of the great 
results which would then ensue that she wondered at times 
at the blindness shown by Providence towards its own tru- 
est interests in not killing off the rectors who stood between 
Theobald and his living a little faster. 

In those days people believed with a simple downright-~ —-— 
ness which I do not observe among educated men and 
women now. It had never so much as crossed Theobald’s 


56 The Way of All Flesh 


mind to doubt the literal accuracy of any syllable in the 
Bible. He had never seen any book in which this was 
disputed, nor met with anyone who doubted it. ‘True, 
there was just a little scare about geology, but there was 
nothing in it. If it was said that God made the world in six 
days, why He did make it in six days, neither in more nor 
less; if it was said that He put Adam to sleep, took out one 
of his ribs and made a woman of it, why it was so as a mat- 
ter of course. He, Adam, went to sleep as it might be him- 
self, Theobald Pontifex, in a garden, as it might be the 
garden at Crampsford Rectory during the summer months 
when it was so pretty, only that it was larger, and had some 
tame wild animals in it. Then God came up to him, as it 
might be Mr. Allaby or his father, dexterously took out 
one of his ribs without waking him, and miraculously 
healed the wound so that no trace of the operation re- 
mained. Finally, God had taken the rib perhaps into the 
greenhouse, and had turned it into just such another young 
woman as Christina. That was how it was done; there was 
neither difficulty nor shadow of difficulty about the matter. 
Could not God do anything He liked, and had He not in 
His own inspired Book told us that He had done this? 
This was the average attitude of fairly educated young 
men and women toward the Mosaic cosmogony fifty, forty, 
or even twenty years ago. The combating of infidelity, 
therefore, offered little scope for enterprising young clergy- 
men, nor had the Church awakened to the activity which 
she has since displayed among the poor in our large towns. 
These were then left almost without an effort at resistance 
or co-operation to the labours of those who had succeeded 
Wesley. Missionary work indeed in heathen countries was 
being carried on with some energy, but Theobald did not 
feel any call to be a missionary. Christina suggested this 
to him more than once, and assured him of the unspeakable 
happiness it would be to her to be the wife of a missionary, 
and to share his dangers; she and Theobald might even be 
martyred; of course they would be martyred simul- 


The Way of All Flesh 57 


taneously, and martyrdom many years hence as regarded 
from the arbour in the Rectory garden was not painful; it 
would ensure them a glorious future in the next world, and 
at any rate posthumous renown in this—even if they were 
not miraculously restored to life again—and such things 
had happened ere now in the case of martyrs. Theobald, 
however, had not been kindled by Christina’s enthusiasm, 
so she fell back upon the Church of Rome—an enemy more 
dangerous, if possible, than paganism itself. A combat with 
Romanism might even yet win for her and Theobald the 
crown of martyrdom. True, the Church of Rome was tol- 
erably quiet just then, but it was the calm before the storm, 
of this she was assured, with a conviction deeper than she 
could have attained by any argument founded upon mere 
reason. 

“We, dearest Theobald,” she exclaimed, “‘will be ever 
faithful. We will stand firm and support one another even 
in the hour of death itself. God in his mercy may spare 
us from being burnt alive. He may or may not do so. O 
Lord” (and she turned her eyes prayerfully to Heaven), 
“spare my Theobald, or grant that he may be be- 
headed.” 

“My dearest,” said Theobald gravely, “‘do not let us agi- 
tate ourselves unduly. If the hour of trial comes we shall 
be best prepared to meet it by having led a quiet, unob- 
trusive life of self-denial and devotion to God’s glory. 
Such a life let us pray God that it may please Him to enable 
us to pray that we may lead.”’ 

“Dearest Theobald,” exclaimed Christina, drying the 
tears that had gathered in her eyes, “‘you are always, al- 
ways right. Let us be self-denying, pure, upright, truth- 
ful in word and deed.” She clasped her hands and looked 
up to Heaven as she spoke. 

“‘Dearest,” rejoined her lover, “we have ever hitherto 
endeavoured to be all these things; we have not been 
worldly people; let us watch and pray that we may so con- 
tinue to the end.” 


58 The Way of All Flesh 


The moon had risen and the arbour was getting damp, so 
they adjourned furthur aspirations for a more convenient 
season. At other times Christina pictured herself and 
Theobald as braving the scorn of almost every human be- 
ing in the achievement of some mighty task which should 
redound to the honour of her Redeemer. She could face 
anything for this. But always towards the end of her vision 
there came a little coronation scene high up in the golden 
regions of the Heavens, and a diadem was set upon her 
head by the Son of Man Himself, amid a host of angels and 
archangels who looked on with envy and admiration—and 
here even Theobald himself was out of it. If there could be 
such a thing as the Mammon of Righteousness, Christina 
would have assuredly made friends with it. Her papa and 
mamma were very estimable people and would in the 
course of time receive Heavenly Mansions in which they 
would be exceedingly comfortable; so doubtless would her 
sisters; so perhaps, even might her brothers; but for her- 
self she felt that a higher destiny was preparing, which it 
was her duty never to lose sight of. The first step towards 
it would be her marriage with Theobald. In spite, how- 
ever, of these flights of religious romanticism, Christina 
was a good-tempered kindly-natured girl enough, who, if 
she had married a sensible layman—we will say a hotel- 
keeper—would have developed into a good landlady and 
been deservedly popular with her guests. 

Such was Theobald’s engaged life. Many a little pres- 
ent passed between the pair, and many a small surprise 
did they prepare pleasantly for one another. ‘They never 
quarrelled, and neither of them flirted with anyone else. 
Mrs. Allaby and his future sisters-in-law idolised Theobald 
in spite of its being impossible to get another deacon to 
come and be played for as long as Theobald was able to 
help Mr. Allaby, which now of course he did free gratis and 
for nothing; two of the sisters, however, did manage to 
find husbands before Christina was actually married, and 
on each occasion Theobald played the part of decoy ele- 


The Way of All Flesh 59 


phant. In the end only two out of the seven daughters 
remained single. 

After three or four years, old Mr. Pontifex became accus- 
tomed to his son’s engagement and looked upon it as 
among the things which had now a prescriptive right to 
toleration. In the spring of 1831, more than five years 
after Theobald had first walked over to Crampsford, one 
of the best livings in the gift of the College unexpectedly 
fell vacant, and was for various reasons declined by the 
two fellows senior to Theobald, who might each have been 
expected to take it. The living was then offered to and of 
course accepted by Theobald, being in value not less than 
£500 a year with a suitable house and garden. Old Mr. 
Pontifex then came down more handsomely than was ex- 
pected and settled £10,000 on his son and daughter-in- 
law for life with remainder to such of their issue as they 
might appoint. In the month of July, 1831, Theobald and 
Christina became man and wife. 


CHAPTER XIII 


A DUE number of old shoes had been thrown at the carriage 
in which the happy pair departed from the Rectory, and it 
had turned the corner at the bottom of the village. It 
could then be seen for two or three hundred yards creeping 
past a fir coppice, and after this was lost to view. 

“John,” said Mr. Allaby to his manservant, “shut the 
gate;” and he went indoors with a sigh of relief which 
seemed to say: “I have done it, and I am alive.” This 
was the reaction after a burst of enthusiastic merriment 
during which the old gentleman had run twenty yards after 
the carriage to fling a slipper at it—which he had duly 
flung. 

But what were the feelings of Theobald and Christina 
when the village was passed and they were rolling quietly 
by the fir plantation? It is at this point that even the stout- 
est heart must fail, unless it beat in the breast of one who is 


60 The Way of All Flesh 


- over head and ears in love. If a young man is in a small 
boat on a choppy sea, along with his affianced bride and 
both are seasick, and if the sick swain can forget his own 
anguish in the happiness of holding the fair one’s head 
when she is at her worst—then he is in love, and his heart 
will be in no danger of failing him as he passes his fir plan- 
tation. Other people, and unfortunately by far the greater 
number of those who get married must be classed among 
the “other people,” will inevitably go through a quarter 
or half an hour of greater or less badness as the case may 
be. ‘Taking numbers into account, I should think more 
mental suffering had been undergone in the streets leading 
from St. George’s Hanover Square, than in the condemned 
cells of Newgate. ‘There is no time at which what the 
Italians call /a jfiglia della Morte lays her cold hand upon 
a man more awfully than during the first half hour that he 
is alone with a woman whom he has married but never 
genuinely loved. 

Death’s daughter did not spare Theobald. He had be- 
haved very well hitherto. When Christina had offered to 
let him go, he had stuck to his post with a magnanimity on 
which he had plumed himself ever since. From that time 
forward he had said to himself: “I, at any rate, am the 
very soul of honour; I am not,” etc., etc. True, at the 
moment of magnanimity the actual cash payment, so to 
speak, was still distant; when his father gave formal con- 
sent to his marriage things began to look more serious; 
when the college living had fallen vacant and been accepted 
they looked more serious still; but when Christina ac- 
tually named the day, then Theobald’s heart fainted within 
him. 

The engagement had gone on so long that he had got 
into a groove, and the prospect of change was disconcert- 
ing. Christina and he had got on, he thought to himself, 
very nicely for a great number of years; why—why—why 
should they not continue to go on as they were doing now 
for the rest of their lives? But there was no more chance 


The Way of All Flesh 61 


of escape for him than for the sheep which is being driven 
to the butcher’s back premises, and like the sheep he felt 
that there was nothing to be gained by resistance, so he 
made none. He behaved, in fact, with decency, and was 
declared on all hands to be one of the happiest men imag- 
inable. 

Now, however, to change the metaphor, the drop had 
actually fallen, and the poor wretch was hanging in mid 
air along with the creature of his affections. This creature 
was now thirty-three years old, and looked it: she had been 
weeping, and her eyes and nose were reddish; if “‘I have 
done it and IJ am alive,”’ was written on Mr. Allaby’s face 
after he had thrown the shoe, “I have done it, and I do 
not see how | can possibly live much longer” was upon the 
face of Theobald as he was being driven along by the fir 
plantation. This, however, was not apparent at the Rec- 
tory. All that could be seen there was the bobbing up and 
down of the postilion’s head, which just over-topped the 
hedge by the roadside as he rose in his stirrups, and the 
black and yellow body of the carriage. 

For some time the pair said nothing: what they must 
have felt during the first half hour, the reader must guess, 
for it is beyond my power to tell him; at the end of that 
time, however, Theobald had rummaged up a conclusion 
from some odd corner of his soul to the effect that now he 
and Christina were married, the sooner they fell into their 
future mutual relations the better. If people who are in a 
difficulty will only do the first little reasonable thing which 
they can clearly recognise as reasonable, they will always 
find the next step more easy both to see and take. What, 
then, thought Theobald, was here at this moment the first 
and most obvious matter to be considered, and what would 
be an equitable view of his and Christina’s relative posi- 
tions in respect to it? Clearly their first dinner was their 
first joint entry into the duties and pleasures of married 
life. No less clearly it was Christina’s duty to order it, and 
his own to eat it and pay for it. 


62 The Way of All Flesh 


The arguments leading to this conclusion, and the con- 
clusion itself, flashed upon Theobald about three and a 
half miles after he had left Crampsford on the road to 
Newmarket. He had breakfasted early, but his usual appe- 
tite had failed him. They had left the vicarage at noon 
without staying for the wedding breakfast. ‘Theobald liked 
an early dinner; it dawned upon him that he was beginning 
to be hungry; from this to the conclusion stated in the 
preceding paragraph the steps had been easy. After a few 
minutes’ further reflection he broached the matter to his 
bride, and thus the ice was broken. 

Mrs. Theobald was not prepared for so sudden an as- 
sumption of importance. Her nerves, never of the strong- 
est, had been strung to their highest tension by the event of 
the morning. She wanted to escape observation; she was 
conscious of looking a little older than she quite liked to 
look as a bride who had been married that morning; she 
feared the landlady, the chambermaid, the waiter—every- 
body and everything; her heart beat so fast that she could 
hardly speak, much less go through the ordeal of ordering 
dinner in a strange hotel with a strange landlady. She 
begged and prayed to be let off. If Theobald would only 
order dinner this once, she would order it any day and 
every day in future. 

But the inexorable Theobald was not to be put off with 
such absurd excuses. He was masternow. Had not Chris- 
tina less than two hours ago promised solemnly to honour 
and obey him, and was she turning restive over such a 
trifle as this? The loving smile departed from his face, 
and was succeeded by a scowl which that old Turk, his 
father, might have envied. ‘Stuff and nonsense, my dear- 
est Christina,” he exclaimed mildly, and stamped his foot 
upon the floor of the carriage. “It is a wife’s duty to order 
her husband’s dinner; you are my wife, and I shall expect 
you to order mine.”’ For Theobald was nothing if he was 
not logical. 

The bride began to cry, and said he was unkind; aleve 


The Way of All Flesh 63 


he said nothing, but revolved unutterable things in his 
heart. Was this, then, the end of his six years of unflag- 
ging devotion? Was it for this that, when Christina had 
offered to let him off, he had stuck to his engagement? 
Was this the outcome of her talks about duty and spiritual 
mindedness—that now upon the very day of her marriage 
she should fail to see that the first step in obedience to God 
lay in obedience to himself? He would drive back to 
Crampsford; he would complain to Mr. and Mrs. Allaby; 
he didn’t mean to have married Christina; he hadn’t mar- 
ried her; it was all a hideous dream; he would But 
a voice kept ringing in his ears which said: “‘ You CAN’T, 
GANT, CANST.”? 

“Can’T I?” screamed the unhappy creature to himself. 

“No,” said the remorseless voice, ““you CAN’T. YOu 
ARE A MARRIED MAN.” 

He rolled back in his corner of the carriage and for the 
first time felt how iniquitous were the marriage laws of 
England. But he would buy Milton’s prose works and read 
his pamphlet on divorce. He might perhaps be able to 
get them at Newmarket. 

So the bride sat crying in one corner of the carriage; 
and the bridegroom sulked in the other, and he feared her 
as only a bridegroom can fear. 

Presently, however, a feeble voice was heard from the 
bride’s corner saying: 

“Dearest Theobald—dearest Theobald, forgive me; I 
have been very, very wrong. Please do not be angry with 
me. I will order the—the ” but the word “‘dinner’’ was 
checked by rising sobs. 

When Theobald heard these words a load began to be 
lifted from his heart, but he only looked towards her, and 
that not too pleasantly. 

“Please tell me,” continued the voice, “‘what you think 
you would like, and I will tell the landlady when we get to 
Newmar ” but another burst of sobs checked the com- 
pletion of the word. 











64 The Way of All Flesh 


The load on Theobald’s heart grew lighter and lighter. 
Was it possible that she might not be going to henpeck 
him after all? Besides, had she not diverted his attention 
from herself to his approaching dinner? 

He swallowed down more of his apprehensions and said, 
but still gloomily, ‘‘I think we might have a roast fowl with 
bread sauce, new potatoes and green peas, and then we 
will see if they could let us have a cherry tart and some 
cream.” 

After a few minutes more he drew her towards him, 
kissed away her tears, and assured her that he knew she 
would be a good wife to him. 

“Dearest Theobald,”’ she exclaimed in answer, “you are 
an angel.”’ 

Theobald believed her, and in ten minutes more the 
happy couple alighted at the inn at Newmarket. 

Bravely did Christina go through her arduous task. 
Eagerly did she beseech the landlady, in secret, not to keep 
her Theobald waiting longer than was absolutely necessary. 

“If you have any soup ready, you know, Mrs. Barber, 
it might save ten minutes, for we might have it while the 
fowl was browning.” 

See how necessity had nerved her! But in truth she had 
a splitting headache, and would have given anything to 
have been alone. 

The dinner was a success. A pint of sherry had warmed 
Theobald’s heart, and he began to hope that, after all, mat- 
ters might still go well with him. He had conquered in 
the first battle, and this gives great prestige. How easy 
it had been too! Why had he never treated his sisters in 
this way? He would do so next time he saw them; he 
might in time be able to stand up to his brother John, or 
even his father. Thus do we build castles in air when 
flushed with wine and conquest. 

The end of the honeymoon saw Mrs. Theobald the most 
devotedly obsequious wife in all England. According to 
the old saying, Theobald had killed the cat at the begin- 


The Way of All Flesh 65 


ning. It had been a very little cat, a mere kitten in fact, 
or he might have been afraid to face it, but such as it had 
been he had challenged it to mortal combat, and had held 
up its dripping head defiantly before his wife’s face. The 
rest had been easy. 

Strange that one whom I have described hitherto as so 
timid and easily put upon should prove such a Tartar all 
of a sudden on the day of his marriage. Perhaps I have 
passed over his years of courtship too rapidly. During 
these he had become a tutor of his college, and had at last 
been Junior Dean. I never yet knew a man whose sense 
of his own importance did not become adequately devel- 
oped after he had held a resident fellowship for five or six 
years. True—immediately on arriving within a ten mile 
radius of his father’s house, an enchantment fell upon him, 
so that his knees waxed weak, his greatness departed, and 
he again felt himself like an overgrown baby under a per- 
petual cloud; but then he was not often at Elmhurst, and 
as soon as he left it the spell was taken off again; once more 
he became the fellow and tutor of his college, the Junior 
Dean, the betrothed of Christina, the idol of the Allaby 
womankind. From all which may be gathered that if Chris- 
tina had been a Barbary hen, and had ruffled her feathers 
in any show of resistance, Theobald would not have ven- 
tured to swagger with her, but she was not a Barbary hen, 
she was only a common hen, and that too with rather a 
smaller share of personal bravery than hens generally have. 


CHAPTER XIV 


BATTERSBY-ON-THE-HILL was the name of the village of 
which Theobald was now Rector. It contained 400 or 500 
inhabitants, scattered over a rather large area, and con- 
sisting entirely of farmers and agricultural labourers. The 
Rectory was commodious, and placed on the brow of a hill 
which gave it a delightful prospect. There was a fair 
sprinkling of neighbours within visiting range, but with 


66 The Way of All Flesh 


one or two exceptions they were the clergymen and clergy- 
men’s families of the surrounding villages. 

By these the Pontifexes were welcomed as great acqui- 
sitions to the neighbourhood. Mr. Pontifex, they said, was 
so clever; he had been senior classic and senior wrangler; 
a perfect genius in fact, and yet with so much sound prac- 
tical common sense as well. As son of such a distinguished 
man as the great Mr. Pontifex, the publisher, he would 
come into a large property by-and-by. Was there not an 
elder brother? Yes, but there would be so much that Theo- 
bald would probably get something very considerable. Of 
course they would give dinner parties. And Mrs. Pontifex, 
what a charming woman she was; she was certainly not 
exactly pretty perhaps, but then she had such a sweet smile 
and her manner was so bright and winning. She was so 
devoted too to her husband and her husband to her; they 
really did come up to one’s ideas of what lovers used to be 
in days of old; it was rare to meet with such a pair in 
these degenerate times; it was quite beautiful, etc., etc. 
Such were the comments of the neighbours on the new 
arrivals. 

As for Theobald’s own parishioners, the farmers were 
civil and the labourers and their wives obsequious. There 
was a little dissent, the legacy of a careless predecessor, 
but as Mrs. Theobald said proudly, “I think Theobald 
may be trusted to deal with that.”’ The church was then 
an interesting speciman of late Norman, with some early 
English additions. It was what in these days would be 
called in a very bad state of repair, but forty or hfty years 
ago few churches were in good repair. If there is one 
feature more characteristic of the present generation than 
another it is that it has been a great restorer of churches. 

Horace preached church restoration in his ode:— 


Delicta, majorum immeritus lues, 
Romane, donec templa refeceris 
Aedesque labentes deorum et 

Foeda nigro simulacra fumo. 


The Way of All Flesh 67 


Nothing went right with Rome for long together after the 
Augustan age, but whether it was because she did restore 
the temples or because she did not restore them, I know 
not. They certainly went all wrong after Constantine’s 
time and yet Rome is still a city of some importance. 

I may say here that before Theobald had been many 
years at Battersby he found scope for useful work in the 
rebuilding of Battersby church, which he carried out at 
considerable cost, towards which he subscribed liberally 
himself. He was his own architect, and this saved expense; 
but architecture was not very well understood about the 
year 1834, when Theobald commenced operations, and the 
result is not as satisfactory as it would have been if he 
had waited a few years longer. 

Every man’s work, whether it be literature or music 
or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a 
portrait of himself, and the more he tries to conceal him- 
self the more clearly will his character appear in spite of 
him. I may very likely be condemning myself, all the time 
that I am writing this book, for I know that whether I 
like it or no I am portraying myself more surely than | 
am portraying any of the characters whom | set before the 
reader. I am sorry that it is so, but I cannot help it— 
after which sop to Nemesis I will say that Battersby church 
in its amended form has always struck me as a better por- 
trait of Theobald than any sculptor or painter short of a 
great master would be able to produce. 

I remember staying with Theobald some six or seven 
months after he was married, and while the old church 
was still standing. I went to church, and felt as Naaman 
must have felt on certain occasions when he had to accom- 
pany his master on his return after having been cured of 
his leprosy. I have carried away a more vivid recollection 
of this and of the people, than of Theobald’s sermon. Even 
now I can see the men in blue smocks reaching to their 
heels, and more than one old woman in a scarlet cloak; the 
row of stolid, dull, vacant plough-boys, ungainly in build, 


al 


68 The Way of All Flesh 


uncomely in face, lifeless, apathetic, a race a good deal 
more like the pre-revolution French peasant as described 
by Carlyle than is pleasant to reflect upon—a race now sup- 
planted by a smarter, comelier and more hopeful genera- 
tion, which has discovered that it too has a right to as much 
happiness as it can get, and with clearer ideas about the 
best means of getting it. 

They shamble in one after another, with steaming breath, 
for it is winter, and loud clattering of hob-nailed boots; 
they beat the snow from off them as they enter, and 
through the opened door I catch a momentary glimpse of a 
dreary, leaden sky and snow-clad tombstones. Somehow 
or other I find the strain which Handel has wedded to the 
words ‘‘ There the ploughman near at hand,” has got into 
my head and there is no getting it out again. How mar- 
vellously old Handel understood these people! 

They bob to Theobald as they pass the reading desk 
(‘The people hereabouts are truly respectful,’’ whispered 
Christina to me; “they know their betters’), and take 
their seats in a long row against the wall. The choir clam- 
ber up into the gallery with their instruments—a violon- 
cello, a clarinet and a trombone. I see them and soon I 
hear them, for there is a hymn before the service, a wild 
strain, a remnant, if I mistake not, of some pre-Reforma- 
tion litany. I have heard what I believe was its remote 
musical progenitor in the church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo at 
Venice not five years since; and again I have heard it far 
away in mid-Atlantic upon a grey sea-Sabbath in June, 
when neither winds nor waves are stirring, so that the emi- 
grants gather on deck, and their plaintive psalm goes 
forth upon the silver haze of the sky, and on the wilderness 
of a sea that has sighed till it can sigh no longer. Or it may 
be heard at some Methodist Camp Meeting upon a Welsh 
hillside, but in the churches it is gone forever. If I were a 
musician I would take it as the subject for the adagio in a 
Wesleyan symphony. 

Gone now are the clarinet, the violoncello and the trom- 


The Way of All Flesh 69 


bone, wild minstrelsy as of the doleful creatures in Ezekiel, 
discordant, but infinitely pathetic. Gone is that scarebabe 
stentor, that bellowing bull of Bashan, the village black- 
smith, gone is the melodious carpenter, gone the brawny 
shepherd with the red hair, who roared more lustily than 
all, until they came to the words, ‘‘Shepherds, with your 
flocks abiding,’’ when modesty covered him with confusion 
and compelled him to be silent, as though his own health 
were being drunk. They were doomed and had a presenti- 
ment of evil, even when first I saw them, but they had still 
a little lease of choir life remaining, and they roared out: 


sg Aaa nla EE IG A val 


wick - ed hands have pierced and nailed him, pierced and nailedhim to a tree. 


but no description can give a proper idea of the effect. 
When I was last in Battersby church there was a har- 
monium played by a sweet-looking girl with a choir of 
school children around her, and they chanted the canticles 
to the most correct of chants, and they sang Hymns An- 
cient and Modern; the high pews were gone, nay, the very 
gallery in which the old choir had sung was removed as an 
accursed thing which might remind the people of the high 
places, and Theobald was old, and Christina was lying 
under the yew trees in the churchyard. 

But in the evening later on I saw three very old men 
come chuckling out of a dissenting chapel, and surely 
enough they were my old friends the blacksmith, the car- 
penter and the shepherd. There was a look of content up- 
on their faces which made me feel certain they had been 
singing; not doubtless with the old glory of the violon- 
cello, the clarinet and the trombone, but still songs of Sion 
and no new fangled papistry. 


CHAPTER XV 


Tue hymn had engaged my attention; when it was over I 
had time to take stock of the congregation. They were 


70 The Way of All Flesh 


chiefly farmers—fat, very well-to-do folk, who had come 
some of them with their wives and children from outlying 
- farms two and three miles away; haters of popery and of 
anything which anyone might choose to say was popish; 
good, sensible fellows who detested theory of any kind, 
whose ideal was the maintenance of the status-quo with per- 
haps a loving reminiscence of old war times, and a sense 
of wrong that the weather was not more completely under 
their control, who desired higher prices and cheaper wages, 
but otherwise were most contented when things were chang- 
ing least; tolerators, if not lovers, of all that was familiar, 
haters of all that was unfamiliar; they would have been 
equally horrified at hearing the Christian religion doubted, 
and at seeing it practised. 

“What can there be in common between Theobald and 
his parishioners?’’ said Christina to me, in the course of 
the evening, when her husband was for a few moments 
absent. ‘“‘Of course one must not complain, but I assure 
you it grieves me to see a man of Theobald’s ability thrown 
away upon such a place as this. If we had only been at 
Gaysbury, where there are the A’s, the B’s, the C’s, and 
Lord D’s place, as you know, quite close, I should not 
then have felt that we were living in such a desert; but I 
suppose it is for the best,’’ she added more cheerfully, ‘‘and 
then of course the Bishop will come to us whenever he is in 
the neighbourhood, and if we were at Gaysbury he might 
have gone to Lord D’s.”’ 

Perhaps I have now said enough to indicate the kind 
of place in which Theobald’s lines were cast, and the sort of 
woman he had married. As for his own habits, I see him 
trudging through muddy lanes and over long sweeps of 
plover-haunted pastures to visit a dying cottager’s wife. 
He takes her meat and wine from his own table, and that 
not a little only but liberally. According to his lights also, 
he administers what he is pleased to call spiritual consola- 
tion. 

“YT am afraid I’m going to Hell, Sir,’ 


b 


says the sick 


The Way of All Flesh 71 


woman with a whine. ‘‘Oh, Sir, save me, save me, don’t 
let me go there. I couldn’t stand it, Sir, I should die with 
fear, the very thought of it drives me into a cold sweat all 
over.” 

“Mrs. Thompson,” says Theobald gravely, ““you must 
have faith in the precious blood of your Redeemer; it is 
He alone who can save you.” 

“But are you sure, Sir,”’ says she, looking wistfully at 
him, “ that He will forgive me—for I’ve not been a very 
good woman, indeed | haven’t—and if God would only say 
“Yes’ outright with His mouth when I ask whether my sins 
are forgiven me——” 

“But they are forgiven you, Mrs. Thompson,” says 
Theobald with some sternness, for the same ground has 
been gone over a good many times already, and he has 
borne the unhappy woman’s misgivings now for a full 
quarter of an hour. Then‘he puts a stop to the conversa- 
tion by repeating prayers taken from the “Visitation of 
the Sick,’ and overawes the poor wretch from expressing 
furthur anxiety as to her condition. 

““Can’t you tell me, Sir,”’ she exclaims piteously, as she 
sees that he is preparing to go away, “can’t you tell me 
that there is no Day of Judgement, and that there is no 
such place as Hell? I can do without the Heaven, Sir, but 
I cannot do with the Hell.”” Theobald is much shocked. 

“Mrs. Thompson,” he rejoins impressively, “let me im- 
plore you to suffer no doubt concerning these two corner- 
stones of our religion to cross your mind at a moment like 
the present. If there is one thing more certain than an- 
other it is that we shall all appear before the Judgement 
Seat of Christ, and that the wicked will be consumed in a 
lake of everlasting fire. Doubt this, Mrs. Thompson, and 
you are lost.”’ 

The poor woman buries her fevered head in the coverlet 
in a paroxysm of fear which at last finds relief in tears. 

“Mrs. Thompson,” says Theobald, with his hand on the 
door, ‘‘compose yourself, be calm; you must please to take 


’ 


72 The Way of All Flesh 


my word for it that at the Day of Judgement your sins 
will be all washed white in the blood of the Lamb, Mrs. 
Thompson. Yea,” he exclaims frantically, “though they 
be as scarlet, yet shall they be as white as wool,”’ and he 
makes off as fast as he can from the fetid atmosphere of 
the cottage to the pure air outside. Oh, how thankful he 
is when the interview is over! 

He returns home, conscious that he has done his duty, 
and administered the comforts of religion to a dying sinner. 
His admiring wife awaits him at the Rectory, and assures 
him that never yet was clergyman so devoted to the wel- 
fare of his flock. He believes her; he has a natural tend- 
ency to believe anything that is told him, and who should 
know the facts of the case better than his wife? Poor 
fellow! He has done his best, but what does a fish’s best 
come to when the fish is out of water? He has left meat 
and wine—that he can do; he will call again and will 
leave more meat and wine; day after day he trudges over 
the same plover-haunted fields, and listens at the end of 
his walk to the same agony of forebodings, which day after 
day he silences, but does not remove, till at last a merciful 
weakness renders the sufferer careless of her future, and 
Theobald is satished that her mind in now peacefully at 
rest in Jesus. 


CHAPIER XVI 


He does not like this branch of his profession—indeed he 
hates it!—but will not admit it to himself. The habit of 
not admitting things to himself has become a confirmed one 
with him. Nevertheless there haunts him an ill defined 
sense that life would be pleasanter if there were no sick 
sinners, or 1f they would at any rate face an eternity of 
torture with more indifference. He does not feel that he 
is in his element. The farmers look as if they were in their 
element. They are full-bodied, healthy and contented; 
but between him and them there is a great gulf fixed. A 


The Way of All Flesh Te 


hard and drawn look begins to settle about the corners of 
his mouth, so that even if he were not in a black coat and 
white tie a child might know him for a parson. 

He knows that he is doing his duty. Every day con- 
vinces him of this more firmly; but then there is not much 
duty for him to do. He is sadly in want of occupation. 
He has no taste for any of those field sports which were 
not considered unbecoming for a clergyman forty years 
ago. He does not ride, nor shoot, nor fish, nor course, nor 
play cricket. Study, to do him justice, he had never really 
liked, and what inducement was there for him to study at 
Battersby? He reads neither old books nor new ones. He 
does not interest himself in art or science or politics, but 
he sets his back up with some promptness if any of them 
show any development unfamiliar to himself. True, he 
writes his own sermons, but even his wife considers that 
his forte lies rather in the example of his life (which is 
one long act of self-devotion) than in his utterances from 
the pulpit. After breakfast he retires to his study; he cuts 
little bits out of the Bible and gums them with exquisite 
neatness by the side of other little bits; this he calls mak- 
ing a Harmony of the Old and New Testaments. Along- 
side the extracts he copies in the very perfection of hand 
writing extracts from Mede (the only man, according to 
Theobald, who really understood the Book of Revelation), 
Patrick, and other old divines. He works steadily at this 
for half an hour every morning during many years, and the 
result is doubtless valuable. After some years have gone 
by he hears his children their lessons, and the daily oft- 
repeated screams that issue from the study during the 
lesson hours tell their own horrible story over the house. 
He has also taken to collecting a hortus siccus, and through 
the interest of his father was once mentioned in the Satur- 
day Magazine as having been the first to find a plant, 
whose name I have forgotten, in the neighbourhood of 
Battersby. This number of the Saturday Magazine has 
been bound in red morocco, and is kept upon the drawing- 


74 The Way of All Flesh 


room table. He potters about his garden; if he hears a 
hen cackling he runs and tells Christina, and straightway 
goes hunting for the egg. 

When the two Miss Allabys came, as they sometimes 
did, to stay with Christina, they said the life led by their 
sister and brother-in-law was an idyll. Happy indeed was 
Christina in her choice—for that she had had a choice was 
a fiction which soon took root among them—and happy 
Theobald in his Christina. Somehow or other Christina 
was always a little shy of cards when her sisters were stay- 
ing with her, though at other times she enjoyed a game of 
cribbage or a rubber of whist heartily enough, but her sis- 
ters knew they would never be asked to Battersby again if 
they were to refer to that little matter, and on the whole it 
was worth their while to be asked to Battersby. If Theo- 
bald’s temper was rather irritable he did not vent it upon 
them. 

By nature reserved, if he could have found someone to 
cook his dinner for him, he would rather have lived in a 
desert island than not. In his heart of hearts he held with 
Pope that “‘the greatest nuisance to mankind is man” or 
words to that effect—only that women, with the exception 
perhaps of Christina, were worse. Yet for all this, when 
visitors called he put a better face on it than anyone who 
was behind the scenes would have expected. 

He was quick too at introducing the names of any literary 
celebrities whom he had met at his father’s house, and 
soon established an all-around reputation which satisfed 
even Christina herself. 

Who so integer vite scelerisque purus, it was asked, as 
Mr. Pontifex of Battersby? Who so fit to be consulted if 
any difficulty about parish management should arise? 
Who such a happy mixture of the sincere uninquiring 
Christina and of the man of the world? For so people 
actually called him. They said he was such an admirable 
man of business. Certainly if he had said he would pay a 
sum of money at a certain time, the money would be 


The Way of All Flesh 75 


forthcoming on the appointed day, and this is saying a 
good deal for any man. His constitutional timidity ren- 
dered him incapable of an attempt to overreach when 
there was the remotest chance of opposition or publicity, 
and his correct bearing and somewhat stern expression were 
a great protection to him against being overreached. He 
never talked of money, and invariably changed the sub- 
ject whenever money was introduced. His expression of 
unutterable horror at all kinds of meanness was a sufh- 
cient guarantee that he was not mean himself. Besides, 
he had no business transactions save of the most ordinary 
butcher’s book and baker’s book description. His tastes 
—if he had any—were, as we have seen, simple; he had 
£900 a year and a house; the neighbourhood was cheap, 
and for some time he had no children to be a drag upon him. 
Who was not to be envied, and if envied why then re- 
spected, if Theobald was not enviable? 

Yet I imagine that Christina was on the whole happier 
than her husband. She had not to go and visit sick parish- 
ioners, and the management of her house and the keeping 
of her accounts afforded as much occupation as she desired. 
Her principal duty was, as she well said, to her husband— 
to love him, honour him, and keep him in a good temper. 
To do her justice, she fulfilled this duty to the uttermost of 
her power. It would have been better perhaps if she had 
not so frequently assured her husband that he was the 
best and wisest of mankind, for no one in his little world 
ever dreamed of telling him anything else, and it was not 
long before he ceased to have any doubt upon the matter. 
As for his temper, which had become very violent at 
times, she took care to humour it on the slightest sign of an 
approaching outbreak. She had early found that this was 
much the easiest plan. The thunder was seldom for her- 
self. Long before her marriage even she had studied his 
little ways, and knew how to add fuel to the fire as long as 
the fire seemed to want it, and then to damp it judiciously 
down, making as little smoke as possible. 


76 The Way of All Flesh 


In money matters she was scrupulousness itself. Theo- 
bald made her a quarterly allowance for her dress, pocket 
money and little charities and presents. In these last items 
she was liberal in proportion to her income; indeed she 
dressed with great economy and gave away whatever was 
over in presents, or charity. Oh, what a comfort it was 
to Theobald to reflect that he had a wife on whom he could 
rely never to cost him a sixpence of unauthorised expendi- 
ture! Letting alone her absolute submission, the perfect 
coincidence of her opinion with his own upon every subject 
and her constant assurances to him that he was right in 
everything which he took it into his head to say or do, 
what a tower of strength to him was her exactness in money 
matters! As years went by he became as fond of his wife 
as it was in his nature to be of any living thing, and ap- 
plauded himself for having stuck to his engagement—a 
piece of virtue of which he was now reaping the reward. 
Even when Christina did outrun her quarterly stipend by 
some thirty shillings or a couple of pounds, it was always 
made perfectly clear to Theobald how the deficiency had 
arisen—there had been an unusually costly evening dress 
bought which was to last a long time, or somebody’s un- 
expected wedding had necessitated a more handsome pres- 
ent than the quarter’s balance would quite allow: the excess 
of expenditure was always repaid in the following quarter 
or quarters even though it were only ten shillings at a time. 

I believe, however, that after they had been married 
some twenty years, Christina had somewhat fallen from her 
original perfection as regards money. She had got gradu- 
ally in arrears during many successive quarters, till she had 
contracted a chronic loan, a sort of domestic national debt, 
amounting to between seven and eight pounds. Theobald 
at length felt that a remonstrance had become imperative, 
and took advantage of his silver wedding day to inform 
Christina that her indebtedness was cancelled, and at the 
same time to beg that she would endeavour henceforth to 
equalise her expenditure and her income. She burst into 


The Way of All Fiesh Th 


tears of love and gratitude, assured him that he was the best 
and most generous of men, and never during the remainder 
of her married life was she a single shilling behindhand. 

Christina hated change of all sorts no less cordially than — 
her husband. She and Theobald had nearly everything 
in this world that they could wish for; why, then, should 
people desire to introduce all sorts of changes of which no 
one could foresee the end? Religion, she was deeply con- 
vinced, had long since attained its final development, nor 
could it enter into the heart of reasonable man to conceive 
any faith more perfect than was inculcated by the Church 
of England. She could imagine no position more honour- 
able than that of a clergyman’s wife unless indeed it were 
a bishop’s. Considering his father’s influence it was not at 
all impossible that Theobald might be a bishop some day— 
and then—then would occur to her that one little flaw in 
the practice of the Church of England—a flaw not indeed 
in its doctrine, but in its policy, which she believed on the 
whole to be a mistaken one in this respect. I mean the fact 
that a bishop’s wife does not take the rank of her husband. 

This had been the doing of Elizabeth, who had been a 
bad woman, of exceedingly doubtfulpaogal character, and at 
heart a Papist to the last. Perhaps people ought to have 
been above mere considerations of worldly dignity, but the 
world was as it was, and such things carried weight with 
them, whether they ought to do so or no. Her influence 
as plain Mrs. Pontifex, wife, we will say, of the Bishop of 
Winchester, would no doubt be considerable. Such a char- 
acter as hers could not fail to carry weight if she were ever 
in a sufficiently conspicuous sphere for its influence to be 
widely felt; but as Lady Winchester—or the Bishopess— 
which would sound quite nicely—who could doubt that her 
power for good would be enhanced? And it would be all 
the nicer because if she had a daughter, the daughter would 
not be a Bishopess unless indeed she were to marry a 
Bishop too, which would not be likely. 

These were her thoughts upon her good days; at other 


a 


78 The Way of All Flesh 


times she would, to do her justice, have doubts whether 
she was in all respects as spiritually minded as she ought 
~to be. She must press on, press on, till every enemy to her 
salvation was surmounted and Satan himself lay bruised 
under her feet. It occurred to her on one of these occa- 
sions that she might steal a march over some of her con- 
temporaries if she were to leave off eating black puddings, 
of which whenever they had killed a pig she had hitherto 
partaken freely; and if she were also careful that no fowls 
were served at her table which had had their necks wrung, 
but only such as had had their throats cut and been allowed 
to bleed. St. Paul and the Church of Jerusalem had in- 
sisted upon it as necessary that even Gentile converts 
should abstain from things strangled and from blood, and 
they had joined this prohibition with that of a vice about 
the abominable nature of which there could be no question; 
it would be well therefore to abstain in future and see 
whether any noteworthy spiritual result ensued. She did 
abstain, and was certain that from the day of her resolve 
she had felt stronger, purer in heart, and in all respects 
more spiritually minded than she had ever felt hitherto. 
Theobald did not lay so much stress on this as she did, but 
as she settled what he should have at dinner she could take 
care that he got no strangled fowls; as for black puddings, 
happily, he had seen them made when he was a boy, and 
had never got over his aversion for them. She wished 
the matter were one of more general observance than it 
was; this was just a case in which as Lady Winchester she 
might have been able to do what as plain Mrs. Pontifex it 
was hopeless even to attempt. 

And thus this worthy couple jogged on from month to 
month and from year to year. The reader, if he has 
passed middle life and has a clerical connection, will proba- 
bly remember scores and scores of rectors and rectors’ 
wives who differed in no material respect from Theobald 
and Christina. Speaking from a recollection and ex- 
perience extending over nearly eighty years from the time 


The Way of All Flesh 19 


when I was myself a child in the nursery of a vicarage, I 
should say I had drawn the better rather than the worst 
side of the life of an English country parson of some fifty 
years ago. I admit, however, that there are no such people 
to be found nowadays. A more united or, on the whole, 
happier, couple could not have been found in England. 
One grief only overshadowed the early years of their 
married life: I mean the fact that no living children were 
born to them. 


CHAPTER XVII 


In the course of time this sorrow was removed. At the 
beginning of the fifth year of her married life Christina 
was safely delivered of a boy. ‘This was on the sixth of 
September, 1835. 

Word was immediately sent to old Mr. Pontifex, who 
received the news with real pleasure. His son John’s wife 
had borne daughters only, and he was seriously uneasy lest 
there should be a failure in the male line of his descendants. 
The good news, therefore, was doubly welcome, and caused 
as much delight at Elmhurst as dismay in Woburn Square, 
where the John Pontifexes were then living. 

Here, indeed, this freak of fortune was felt to be all the 
more cruel on account of the impossibility of resenting it 
openly; but the delighted grandfather cared nothing for 
what the John Pontifexes might feel or not feel; he had 
wanted a grandson and he had got a grandson, and this 
should be enough for everybody; and, now that Mrs. 
Theobald had taken to good ways, she might bring him 
more grandsons, which would be desirable, for he should 
not feel safe with fewer than three. 

He rang the bell for the butler. 

““Gelstrap,” he said solemnly, “I want to go down into 
the cellar.” 

Then Gelstrap preceded him with a candle, and he went 
into the inner vault where he kept his choicest wines. 


80 The Way of All Flesh 


He passed many bins: there was 1803 Port, 1792 Im- 
perial Tokay, 1800 Claret, 1812 Sherry, these and many 
others were passed, but it was not for them that-the head of 
the Pontifex family had gone down into his inner cellar. 
A bin, which had appeared empty until the full light of the 
candle had been brought to bear upon it, was now found 
to contain a single pint bottle. This was the object of Mr. 
Pontifex’s search. 

Gelstrap had often pondered over this bottle. It had 
been placed there by Mr. Pontifex himself about a dozen 
years previously, on his return from a visit to his friend 
the celebrated traveller, Dr. Jones—but there was no tab- 
let above the bin which might give a clue to the nature of its 
contents. On more than one occasion when his master had 
gone out and left his keys accidentally behind him, as he 
sometimes did, Gelstrap had submitted the bottle to all the 
tests he could venture upon, but it was so carefully sealed 
that wisdom remained quite shut out from that entrance at 
which he would have welcomed her most gladly—and in- 
deed from all other entrances, for he could make out noth- 
ing at all. 

And now the mystery was to be solved. But alas! it 
seemed as though the last chance of securing even a sip of 
the contents was to be removed for ever, for Mr. Pontifex 
took the bottle into his own hands and held it up to the 
light after carefully examining the seal. He smiled and 
left the bin with the bottle in his hands. 

Then came a catastrophe. He stumbled over an empty 
hamper; there was the sound of a fall—a smash of broken 
glass, and in an instant the cellar floor was covered with the 
liquid that had been preserved so carefully for so many years. 

With his usual presence of mind Mr. Pontifex gasped out 
a month’s warning to Gelstrap. Then he got up, and 
stamped as Theobald had done when Christina had wanted 
not to order his dinner. 

“It’s water from the Jordan,” he exclaimed furiously, 
“which I have been saving for the baptism of my eldest 


The Way of All Flesh 81 


grandson. Damn you, Gelstrap, how dare you be so in- 
fernally careless as to leave that hamper littering about the 
cellar?” 

I wonder the water of the sacred stream did not stand 
upright as an heap upon the cellar floor and rebuke him. 
Gelstrap told the other servants afterwards that his mas- 
ters language had made his backbone curdle. 

The moment, however, that he heard the word ‘‘ water” 
he saw his way again, and flew to the pantry. Before his 
master had well noted his absence he returned with a little 
sponge and a basin, and had begun sopping up the waters 
of the Jordan as though they had been a common slop. 

“Tl filter it, Sir,” said Gelstrap meekly. “It'll come 
quite clean.” 

Mr.. Pontifex saw hope in this suggestion, which was 
shortly carried out by the help of a piece of blotting paper 
and a funnel, under his own eyes. Eventually it was found 
that half a pint was saved, and this was held to be sufficient. 

Then he made preparations for a visit to Battersby. He 
ordered goodly hampers of the choicest eatables, he se- 
lected a goodly hamper of choice drinkables. I say choice 
and not choicest, for although in his first exaltation he had 
selected some of his very best wine, yet on reflection he had 
felt that there was moderation in all things, and as he was. 
parting with his best water from the Jordan, he would only 
send some of his second best wine. 

Before he went to Battersby he stayed a day or two in 
London, which he now seldom did, being over seventy 
years old, and having practically retired from business. 
The John Pontifexes, who kept a sharp eye on him, dis- 
covered to their dismay that he had had an interview with 
his solicitors. 


CHAPTER XVIII 
For the first time in his life Theobald felt that he had done 


something right, and could look forward to meeting his 


82 The Way of All Flesh 


father without alarm. The old gentleman, indeed, had 
written him a most cordial letter, announcing his intention 
of standing godfather to the boy—nay, I may as well give 
it in full, as it shows the writer at his best. It runs: 


“Dear Theobald,—Your letter gave me very sincere 
pleasure, the more so because I had made up my mind for 
the worst; pray accept my most hearty congratulations for 
my daughter-in-law and for yourself. 

“T have long preserved a phial of water from the Jordan 
for the christening of my first grandson, should it please 
God to grant me one. It was given me by my old friend, 
Dr. Jones. You will agree with me that though the efhicacy 
of the sacrament does not depend upon the source of the 
baptismal waters, yet, ceteris paribus, there is a sentiment 
attaching to the waters of the Jordan which should not be 
despised. Small matters like this sometimes influence a 
child’s whole future career. 

“T shall bring my own cook, and have told him to get 
everything ready for the christening dinner. Ask as many 
of your best neighbours as your table will hold. By the 
way, I have told Leseur not to get a lobster—you had better 
drive over yourself and get one from Saltness (for Battersby 
was only fourteen or fifteen miles from the sea coast); they 
are better there, at least I think so, than anywhere else 
in England. 

“T have put your boy down for something in the event 
of his attaining the age of twenty-one years. If your 
brother John continues to have nothing but girls I may 
do more later on, but I have many claims upon me, and 
am not as well off as you may imagine.—Your affectionate 
father, G. PonTIFEX.” 


A few days afterwards the writer of the above letter 
made his appearance in a fly which had brought him from 
Gildenham to Battersby, a distance of fourteen miles. 
‘There was Leseur, the cook, on the box with the driver, and 


The Way of All Flesh 83 


as many hampers as the fly could carry were disposed upon 
the roof and elsewhere. Next day the John Pontifexes had 
to come, and Eliza and Maria, as well as Alethea, who, by 
her own special request, was godmother to the boy, for Mr. 
Pontifex had decided that they were to form a happy 
family party; so come they all must, and be happy they all 
must, or it would be the worse for them. Next day the 
author of all this hubbub was actually christened. Theo- 
bald had proposed to call him George after old Mr. Pontifex, 
but strange to say, Mr. Pontifex overruled him in favour 
of the name Ernest. The word “earnest” was just be- 
ginning to come into fashion, and he thought the possession 
of such a name might, like his having been baptised in 
water from the Jordan, have a permanent effect upon the 
boy’s character, and influence him for good during the 
more critical periods of his life. 

I was asked to be his second godfather, and was rejoiced, 
to have an opportunity of meeting Alethea, whom I had 
not seen for some few years, but with whom I[ had been in 
constant correspondence. She and I had always been 
friends from the time we had played together as children 
onwards. When the death of her grandfather and grand- 
mother severed her connection with Paleham my intimacy 
with the Pontifexes was kept up by my having been at 
school and college with Theobald, and each time I saw her 
I admired her more and more as the best, kindest, wittiest, 
most lovable, and, to my mind, handsomest woman whom 
I had ever seen. None of the Pontifexes were deficient 
in good looks; they were a well-grown, shapely family 
enough, but Alethea was the flower of the flock even as re- 
gards good looks, while in respect of all other qualities 
that make a woman lovable, it seemed as though the 
stock that had been intended for the three daughters, and 
would have been about sufficient for them, had all been 
allotted to herself, her sisters getting none, and she all. 

It is impossible for me to explain how it was that she 
and I never married. We two knew exceedingly well, and 


84 The Way of All Flesh 


that must suffice for the reader. There was the most per- 
fect sympathy and understanding between us; we knew 
that neither of us would marry anyone else. I had asked 
her to marry me a dozen times over; having said this 
much I will say no more upon a point which is in no way 
necessary for the development of my story. For the last 
few years there had been difficulties in the way of our 
meeting, and I had not seen her, though, as I have said, 
keeping up a close correspondence with her. Naturally I 
was overjoyed to meet her again; she was now just thirty 
years old, but I thought she looked handsomer than ever. 

Her father, of course, was the lion of the party, but 
seeing that we were all meek and quite willing to be eaten, 
he roared to us rather than at us. It was a fine sight to 
see him tucking his napkin under his rosy old gills, and 
letting it fall over his capacious waistcoat while the high 
light from the chandelier danced about the bump of 
benevolence on his bald old head like a star of Bethlehem. 

The soup was real turtle; the old gentleman was evi- 
dently well pleased and he was beginning to come out. 
Gelstrap stood behind his master’s chair. I sat next Mrs. 
Theobald on her left hand, and was thus just opposite her 
father-in-law, whom [| had every opportunity of observing. 

During the first ten minutes or so, which were taken up 
with the soup and the bringing in of the fish, I should prob- 
ably have thought, if I had not long since made up my 
mind about him, what a fine old man he was and how 
proud his children should be of him; but suddenly as he 
was helping himself to lobster sauce, he flushed crimson, a 
look of extreme vexation suffused his face, and he darted 
two furtive but fiery glances to the two ends of the table, 
one for Theobald and one for Christina. They, poor simple 
souls, of course saw that something was exceedingly wrong, 
and so did I, but I couldn’t guess what it was till I heard 
the old man hiss in Christina’s ear: “It was not made with 
a hen lobster. What’s the use,” he continued, “of my call- 
ing the boy Ermest, and getting him christened in water 


The Way of All Flesh 85 


from the Jordan, if his own father does not know a cock 
from a hen lobster?”’ 

This cut me too, for I felt that till that moment I had 
not so much as known that there were cocks and hens 
among lobsters, but had vaguely thought that in the matter 
of matrimony they were even as the angels in heaven, and 
grew up almost spontaneously from rocks and seaweed. 

Before the next course was over Mr. Pontifex had re- 
covered his temper, and from that time to the end of the 
evening he was at his best. He told us all about the water 
from the Jordan; how it had been brought by Dr. Jones 
along with some stone jars of water from the Rhine, the 
Rhone, the Elbe and the Danube, and what trouble he 
had had with them at the Custom Houses, and how the in- 
tention had been to make punch with waters from all the 
greatest rivers in Europe; and how he, Mr. Pontifex, had 
saved the Jordan water from going into the bowl, etc., etc. 
““No, no, no,” he continued, “it wouldn’t have done 
at all, you know; very profane idea; so we each took a pint 
bottle of it home with us, and the punch was much better 
without it. I had a narrow escape with mine, though, the 
other day; I fell over a hamper in the cellar, when I was 
getting it up to bring to Battersby, and if I had not taken 
the greatest care the bottle would certainly have been 
broken, but I saved it.”” And Gelstrap was standing be- 
hind his chair all the time. 

Nothing more happened to ruffle Mr. Pontifex, so we 
had a delightful evening, which has often recurred to me 
while watching the after career of my godson. 

I called a day or two afterwards and found Mr. Pontifex 
still at Battersby, laid up with one of those attacks of liver 
and depression to which he was becoming more and more 
subject. I stayed to luncheon. ‘The old gentleman was 
cross and very difficult; he could eat nothing—had no ap- 
petite at all. Christina tried to coax him with a little bit of 
the fleshy part of a mutton chop. “How in the name of 
reason can I be asked to eat a mutton chop?” he exclaimed 


86 The Way of All Flesh 


angrily; ‘‘you forget, my dear Christina, that you have to 
deal with a stomach that is totally disorganised,” and he 
pushed the plate from him, pouting and frowning like a 
naughty old child. Writing as I do by the light of a later 
knowledge, I suppose I should have seen nothing in this 
but the world’s growing pains, the disturbance inseparable 
from transition in human things. I suppose in reality not a 
leaf goes yellow in autumn without ceasing to care about 
its sap and making the parent tree very uncomfortable by 
long growling and grumbling—but surely nature might 
find some less irritating way of carrying on business if she 
_ would give her mind to it. Why should the generations 
overlap one another at all? Why cannot we be buried as 
eggs in neat little cells with ten or twenty thousand pounds 
each wrapped round us in Bank of England notes, and 
wake up, as the sphex wasp does, to find that its papa and 
mamma have not only left ample provision at its elbow, 
but have been eaten by sparrows some weeks before it be- 
gan to live consciously on its own account? 

About a year and a half afterwards the tables were 
turned on Battersby—for Mrs. John Pontifex was safely 
delivered of a boy. A year or so later still, George Ponti- 
fex was himself struck down suddenly by a fit of paralysis, 
much as his mother had been, but he did not see the years 
of his mother. When his will was opened, it was found 
that an original bequest of £20,000 to Theobald himself 
(over and above the sum that had been settled upon him 
and Christina at the time of his marriage) had been cut 
down to £17,500 when Mr. Pontifex left “something” to 
Ernest. The “something” proved to be £2500, which was 
to accumulate in the hands of trustees. The rest of the 
property went to John Pontifex, except that each of the 
daughters was left with about £15,000 over and above 
£5000 apiece which they inherited from their mother. 

Theobald’s father then had told him the truth but not 
the whole truth. Nevertheless, what right had Theobald 
to complain? Certainly it was rather hard to make him 


The Way of All Flesh 87 


think that he and his were to be gainers, and get the honour 
and glory of the bequest, when all the time the money was 
virtually being taken out of Theobald’s own pocket. On 
the other hand the father doubtless argued that he had 
never told Theobald that he was to have anything at all; he 
had a full right to do what he liked with his own money; 
if Theobald chose to indulge in unwarrantable expectations 
that was no affair of his; as it was he was providing for 
him liberally; and if he did take £2500 of Theobald’s share 
he was still leaving it to Theobald’s son, which, of course, 
was much the same thing in the end. 

No one can deny that the testator had strict right upon 
his side; nevertheless the reader will agree with me that 
Theobald and Christina might not have considered the 
christening dinner so great a success if all the facts had 
been before them. Mr. Pontifex had during his own life- 
time set up a monument in Elmhurst Church to the 
memory of his wife (a slab with urns and cherubs like 1il- 
legitimate children of King George the Fourth, and all the 
rest of it), and had left space for his own epitaph under- 
neath that of his wife. I do not know whether it was 
written by one of his children, or whether they got some 
friend to write it forthem. I do not believe that any satire 
was intended. I believe that it was the intention to convey 
that nothing short of the Day of Judgement could give 
anyone an idea how good a man Mr. Pontifex had been, 
but at first I found it hard to think that it was free from 
guile. 

The epitaph begins by giving dates of birth and death; 
then sets out that the deceased was for many years head 
of the firm of Fairlie and Pontifex, and also resident in the 
parish of Elmhurst. There is not a syllable of either praise 
or dispraise. The last lines run as follows:— 


HE NOW LIES AWAITING A JOYFUL RESURRECTION 
AT THE LAST DAY. 
WHAT MANNER OF MAN HE WAS 
THAT DAY WILL DISCOVER. 


88 The Way of All Flesh 


CHAPTER XIX 


Tuts much, however, we may say in the meantime, that 
having lived to be nearly seventy-three years old and died 
rich he must have been in very fair harmony with his sur- 
roundings. I have heard it said sometimes that such and 
such a person’s life was a lie: but no man’s life can be a 
very bad lie; as long as it continues at all it is at worst 
nine-tenths of it true. 

Mr. Pontifex’s life not only continued a long time, but 
was prosperous right up to the end. Is not this enough? 
Being in this world is it not our most obvious business to 
make the most of it—to observe what things do bona fide 
tend to long life and comfort, and to act accordingly? All 
animals, except man, know that the principal business of 
life is to enjoy it—and they do enjoy it as much as man 
and other circumstances will allow. He has spent his life 
best who has enjoyed it most; God will take care that we 
do not enjoy it any more than is good for us. If Mr. Pon- 
tifex is to be blamed it is for not having eaten and drunk 
less and thus suffered less from his liver, and lived perhaps 
a year or two longer. 

Goodness is naught unless it tends towards old age and 
suficiency of means. I speak broadly and exceptis ex- 
cipiendis. So the psalmist says, “The righteous shall not 
lack anything that is good.”’ Either this is mere poetical 
license, or it follows that he who lacks anything that is 
good is not righteous; there is a presumption also that he 
who has passed a long life without lacking anything that 
is good has himself also been good enough for practical 
purposes. 

Mr. Pontifex never lacked anything he much cared 
about. True, he might have been happier than he was if he 
had cared about things which he did not care for, but the 
gist of this lies in the “if he had cared.” We have all 
sinned and come short of the glory of making ourselves as 
comfortable as we easily might have done, but in this par- 


The Way of All Flesh 89 


ticular case Mr. Pontifex did not care, and would not have 
gained much by getting what he did not want. 

There is no casting of swine’s meat before men worse 
than that which would flatter virtue as though her true ori- 
gin were not good enough for her, but she must have a line- 
age, deduced as it were by spiritual heralds, from some 
stock with which she has nothing todo. Virtue’s true line- 
age is older and more respectable than any that can be 
invented for her. She springs from man’s experience 
concerning his own well-being—and this, though not in- 
fallible, is still the least fallible thing we have. A system 
which cannot stand without a better foundation than this 
must have something so unstable within itself that it will 
topple over on whatever pedestal we place it. 

The world has long ago settled that morality and virtue 
are what bring men peace at the last. “Be virtuous,”’ says 
the copy-book, “‘and you will be happy.” Surely if a 
reputed virtue fails often in this respect it is only an in- 
sidious form of vice, and if a reputed vice brings no very 
serious michief on a man’s later years it is not so bad a vice 
as it is said to be. Unfortunately, though we are all of 
a mind about the main opinion that virtue is what tends 
to happiness, and vice what ends in sorrow, we are not so 
unanimous about details—that is to say as to whether any 
given course, such, we will say, as smoking, has a tendency 
to happiness or the reverse. 

I submit it as the result of my own poor observation 
that a good deal of unkindness and selfishness on the part 
of parents towards children is not generally followed by ill 
consequences to the parents themselves. They may cast 
a gloom over their children’s lives for many years without 
having to suffer anything that will hurt them. I should 
say, then, that it shows no great moral obliquity on the 
part of parents if within certain limits they make their 
children’s lives a burden to them. 

Granted that Mr. Pontifex’s was not a very exalted char- 
acter, ordinary men are not required to have very exalted 


e 


90 The Way of All Flesh 


characters. It is enough if we are of the same moral and 
mental stature as the “main” or “mean” part of men—that 
is to say as the average. 

It is involved in the very essence of things that rich 
men who die old shall have been mean. The greatest and 
wisest of mankind will be almost always found to be the 
meanest—the ones who have kept the “mean” best be- 
tween excess either of virtue or vice. They hardly ever 
have been prosperous if they have not done this, and, con- 
sidering how many miscarry altogether, it is no small 
feather in a man’s cap if he has been no worse than his 
neighbours. Homer tells us about some one who made it 
his business atev apwteverv Kat vrrelpoxov Eupevat aAdrAwY 
—always to excel and to stand higher than other people. 
What an uncompanionable, disagreeable person he must 
have been! Homer’s heroes generally came to a bad end, 
and I doubt not that this gentleman, whoever he was, did 
so sooner or later. 

A very high standard, again, involves the possession of 
rare virtues, and rare virtues are like rare plants or animals, 
things that have not been able to hold their own in the 
world. A virtue to be serviceable must, like gold, be 
alloyed with some commoner but more durable metal. 

People divide off vice and virtue as though they were 
two things, neither of which had with it anything of the 
other. This is not so. There is no useful virtue which has 
not some alloy of vice, and hardly any vice, if any, which 
carries not with it a little dash of virtue; virtue and vice 
are like life and death, or mind and matter—things which 
cannot exist without being qualified by their opposite. 
The most absolute life contains death, and the corpse is 
still in many respects living; so also it has been said, “If 
thou, Lord, wilt be extreme to mark what is done amiss,” 
which shows that even the highest ideal we can conceive 
will yet admit so much compromise with vice as shall 
countenance the poor abuses of the time, if they are not 
too outrageous. That vice pays homage to virtue is no- 


The Way of All Flesh 91 


torious; we call this hypocrisy; there should be a word 
found for the homage which virtue not unfrequently pays, 
or at any rate would be wise in paying, to vice. 

I grant that some men will find happiness in having what 
we all feel to be a higher moral standard than others. If 
they go in for this, however, they must be content with 
virtue as her own reward, and not grumble if they find lofty 
Quixotism an expensive luxury, whose rewards belong to a 
kingdom that is not of this world. They must not wonder 
if they cut a poor figure in trying to make the most of 
both worlds. Disbelieve as we may the details of the ac- 
counts which record the growth of the Christian religion, 
yet a great part of Christian teaching will remain as true as 
though we accepted the details. We cannot serve God and 
Mammon; strait is the way and narrow is the gate which 
leads to what those who live by faith hold to be best worth 
having, and there is no way of saying this better than the 
Bible has done. It is well there should be some who think 
thus, as it is well there should be speculators in commerce, 
who will often burn their fingers—but it is not well that 
the majority should leave the “mean” and beaten path. 

For most men, and most circumstances, pleasure— 
tangible material prosperity in this world—is the safest 
test of virtue. Progress has ever been through the pleasure 
rather than through the extreme sharp virtues, and the 
most virtuous have leaned to excess rather than to asceti- 
cism. To use a commercial metaphor, competition is so 
keen, and the margin of profits has been cut down so 
closely that virtue cannot afford to throw any bona fide 
chance away, and must base her action rather on the actual 
moneying out of conduct than on a flattering prospectus. 
She will not therefore neglect—as some do who are prudent 
and economical enough in other matters—the important 
factor of our chance of escaping detection, or at any rate of 
our dying first. A reasonable virtue will give this chance 
its due value, neither more nor less. 

Pleasure, after all, is a safer guide than either right or 


92 The Way of All Flesh 


duty. For hard as it is to know what gives us pleasure, 
right and duty are often still harder to distinguish and, if 
we go wrong with them, will lead us into just as sorry a 
plight as a mistaken opinion concerning pleasure. When 
men burn their fingers through following after pleasure 
they find out their mistake and get to see where they have 
gone wrong more easily than when they have burnt them 
through following after a fancied duty, or a fancied idea 
concerning right virtue. The devil, in fact, when he dresses 
himself in angel’s clothes, can only be detected by experts 
of exceptional skill, and so often does he adopt this disguise 
that it is hardly safe to be seen talking to an angel at all, 
and prudent people will follow after pleasure as a more 
homely but more respectable and on the whole much more 
trustworthy guide. 

Returning to Mr. Pontifex, over and above his having 
lived long and prosperously, he left numerous offspring, to 
all of whom he communicated not only his physical and 
mental characteristics, with no more than the usual amount 
of modification, but also no small share of characteristics 
which are less easily transmitted—I mean his pecuniary 
characteristics. It may be said that he acquired these 
by sitting still and letting money run, as it were, right up 
against him, but against how many does not money run 
who do not take it when it does, or who, even if they hold 
it for a little while, cannot so incorporate it with them- 
selves that it shall descend through them to their offspring? 
Mr. Pontifex did this. He kept what he may be said to 
have made, and money is like a reputation for ability— 
more easily made than kept. 

Take him, then, for all in all, I am not inclined to be 
so severe upon him as my father was. Judge him accord- 
ing to any very lofty standard, and he is nowhere. Judge 
him according to a fair average standard, and there is not 
much fault to be found with him. I have said what I 
have said in the foregoing chapter once for all, and shall 
not break my thread to repeat it. It should go without 


The Way of All Flesh 93 


saying in modification of the verdict which the reader 
may be inclined to pass too hastily, not only upon Mr. 
George Pontifex, but also upon Theobald and Christina. 
And now I will continue my story. 


GHAPTERRXAX 


Tue birth of his son opened Theobald’s eyes to a good 
deal which he had but faintly realized hitherto. He had 
had no idea how great a nuisance a baby was. Babies 
come into the world so suddenly at the end, and upset 
everything so terribly when they do come: why cannot they 
steal in upon us with less of a shock to the domestic sys- 
tem? His wife, too, did not recover rapidly from her 
confinement; she remained an invalid for months; here 
was another nuisance and an expensive one, which inter- 
fered with the amount which Theobald liked to put by 
out of his income against, as he said, a rainy day, or to 
make provision for his family if he should have one. Now 
he was getting a family, so that it became all the more 
necessary to put money by, and here was the baby hinder- 
ing him. Theorists may say what they like about a man’s 
children being a continuation of his own identity, but it 
will generally be found that those who talk in this way have 
no children of their own. Practical family men know bet- 
ter. 

About twelve months after the birth of Ernest there 
came a second, also a boy, who was christened Joseph, 
and in less than twelve months afterwards, a girl, to whom 
was given the name of Charlotte. A few months before 
this girl was born Christina paid a visit to the John Ponti- 
fexes in London, and, knowing her condition, passed a 
good deal of time at the Royal Academy exhibition look- 
ing at the types of female beauty portrayed by tne Acad- 
emicians, for she had made up her mind that the child this 
time was to be a girl. Alethea warned her not to do this, 
but she persisted, and certainly the child turned out 


94 The Way of All Flesh 


plain, but whether the pictures caused this or no, I cannot 
say. 

Theobald had never liked children. He had always got 
away from them as soon as he could, and so had they 
from him; oh, why, he was inclined to ask himself, could 
not children be born into the world grown up? If Chnis- 
tina could have given birth to a few full-grown clergymen 
in priest’s orders—of moderate views, but inclining rather 
to Evangelicism, with comfortable livings and in all re- 
spects facsimiles of Theobald himself—why, there might 
have been more sense in it; or if people could buy ready- 
made children at a shop of whatever age and sex they 
liked, instead of always having to make them at home and 
to begin at the beginning with them—that might do 
better, but as it was he did not like it. He felt as he had 
felt when he had been required to come and be married to 
Christina—that he had been going on for a long time quite 
nicely, and would much rather continue things on their 
present footing. In the matter of getting married he had 
been obliged to pretend he liked it; but times were changed, 
and if he did not like a thing now, he could find a hundred 
unexceptionable ways of making his dislike apparent. 

It might have been better if Theobald in his younger 
days had kicked more against his father: the fact that he 
had not done so encouraged him to expect the most 
implicit obedience from his own children. He could 
trust himself, he said (and so did Christina), to be more 
lenient than perhaps his father had been to himself; his 
danger, he said (and so again did Christina), would be 
rather in the direction of being too indulgent; he must 
be on his guard against this, for no duty could be more 
important than that of teaching a child to obey its parents 
in all things. 

He had read not long since of an Eastern traveller, 
who, while exploring somewhere in the more remote parts 
of Arabia and Asia Minor, had come upon a remarkably 
hardy, sober, industrious little Christian community— 


The Way of All Flesh 95 


all of them in the best of health—who had turned out to 
be the actual living descendants of Jonadab, the son of 
Rechab; and two men in European costume, indeed, 
but speaking English with a broken accent, and by their 
colour evidently Oriental, had come begging to Battersby 
soon afterwards, and represented themselves as belonging 
to this people; they had said they were collecting funds 
to promote the conversion of their fellow tribesmen to 
the English branch of the Christian religion. True, they 
turned out to be impostors, for when he gave them a 
pound and Christina five shillings from her private purse, 
they went and got drunk with it in the next village but 
one to Battersby; still, this did not invalidate the story 
of the Eastern traveller. Then there were the Romans— 
whose greatness was probably due to the wholesome 
authority exercised by the head of a family over all its 
members. Some Romans had even killed their children; 
this was going too far, but then the Romans were not 
Christians, and knew no better. 

The practical outcome of the foregoing was a conviction 
in Theobald’s mind, and if in his, then in Christina’s, that 
it was their duty to begin training up their children in the 
way they should go, even from their earliest infancy. 
The first signs of self-will must be carefully looked for, 
and plucked up by the roots at once before they had time 
to grow. Theobald picked up this numb serpent of a 
metaphor and cherished it in his bosom. 

Before Ernest could well crawl he was taught to kneel; 
before he could well speak he was taught to lisp the Lord’s 
prayer, and the general confession. How was it possible 
that these things could be taught too early? If his at- 
tention flagged or his memory failed him, here was an 
ill weed which would grow apace, unless it were plucked 
out immediately, and the only way to pluck it out was to 
whip him, or shut him up in a cupboard, or dock him of 
some of the small pleasures of childhood. Before he was 
three years old he could read and, after a fashion, write. 


96 The Way of All Flesh 


Before he was four he was learning Latin, and could do 
rule of three sums. 

As for the child himself, he was naturally of an even 
temper; he doted upon his nurse, on kittens and puppies, 
and on all things that would do him the kindness of allow- 
ing him to be fond of them. He was fond of his mother, 
too, but as regards his father, he has told me in later life 
he could remember no feeling but fear and shrinking. 
Christina did not remonstrate with Theobald concerning 
the severity of the tasks imposed upon their boy, nor yet 
as to the continual whippings that were found necessary 
at lesson times. Indeed, when during any absence of 
Theobald’s the lessons were entrusted to her, she found 
to her sorrow that it was the only thing to do, and she did 
it no less effectually than Theobald himself, nevertheless 
she was fond of her boy, which Theobald never was, and 
it was long before she could destroy all affection for her- 
self in the mind of her first-born. But she persevered. 


CHAPTER XXI 


STRANGE! for she believed she doted upon him, and cer- 
tainly she loved him better than either of her other children. 
Her version of the matter was that there had never yet 
been two parents so self-denying and devoted to the high- 
est welfare of their children as Theobald and herself. 
For Ernest, a very great future—she was certain of it— 
was in store. This made severity all the more necessary, 
so that from the first he might have been kept pure from 
every taint of evil. She could not allow herself the scope 
for castle building which, we read, was indulged in by every 
Jewish matron before the appearance of the Messiah, for. 
the Messiah had now come, but there was to be a millen- 
nium shortly, certainly not later than 1866, when Ernest 
would be just about the right age for it, and a modern 
Elias would be wanted, to herald its approach. Heaven 
would bear her witness that she had never shrunk from the 


The Way of All Flesh 97 


idea of martyrdom for herself and Theobald, nor would 
she avoid it for her boy, if his life was required of her in 
her Redeemer’s service. Oh, no! If God told her to offer 
up her first-born, as He had told Abraham, she would 
take him up to Pigbury Beacon and plunge the—no, that 
she could not do, but it would be unnecessary—some one 
else might dothat. It was not for nothing that Ernest had 
been baptised in water from the Jordan. It had not been 
her doing, nor yet Theobald’s. They had not sought it. 
When water from the sacred stream was wanted for a 
sacred infant, the channel had been found through which 
it was to flow from far Palestine over land and sea to the 
door of the house where the child was lying. Why, it wasa 
miracle! It was! It was! She saw it all now. The Jordan 
had left its bed and flowed into her own house. It was idle 
to say that this was not a miracle. No miracle was effected 
without means of some kind; the difference between the 
faithful and the unbeliever consisted in the very fact that 
the former could see a miracle where the latter could not. 
The Jews could see no miracle even in the raising of Laz- 
arus and the feeding of the five thousand. The John 
Pontifexes would see no miracle in this matter of the water 
from the Jordan. The essence of a miracle lay not in the 
fact that means had been dispensed with, but in the adop- 
tion of means to a great end that had not been available 
without interference; and no one would suppose that Dr. 
Jones would have brought the water unless he had been 
directed. She would tell this to Theobald, and get him 
to see it in the . . . and yet perhaps it would be better 
not. The insight of women upon matters of this sort was 
deeper and more unerring than that of men. It was a 
woman and not a man who had been filled most completely 
with the whole fulness of the Deity. But why had they 
not treasured up the water after it was used? It ought 
never, never to have been thrown away, but it had been. 
Perhaps, however, this was for the best too—they might 
have been tempted to set too much store by it, and it 


98 The Way of All Flesh 


might have become a source of spiritual danger to them— 
perhaps even of spiritual pride, the very sin of all others 
which she most abhorred. As for the channel through 
which the Jordan had flowed to Battersby, that mattered 
not more than the earth through which the river ran in 
Palestine itself. Dr. Jones was certainly worldly—very 
worldly; so, she regretted to feel, had been her father-in- 
law, though in a less degree; spiritual, at heart, doubtless, 
and becoming more and more spiritual continually as he 
grew older, still he was tainted with the world, till a very 
few hours, probably, before his death, whereas she and 
Theobald had given up all for Christ’s sake. They were 
not worldly. At least Theobald was not. She had been, 
but she was sure she had grown in grace since she left 
off eating things strangled and blood—this was as the 
washing in Jordan as against Abana and Pharpar, rivers of 
Damascus. Her boy should never touch a strangled fowl 
nor a black pudding—that, at any rate, she could see to. 
He should have a coral from the neighbourhood of Joppa— 
there were coral insects on those coasts, so that the thing 
could easily be done with a little energy; she would write 
to Dr. Jones about it, etc. And so on for hours together 
day after day for years. Truly Mrs. Theobald loved her 
child according to her lights with an exceeding great fond- 
ness, but the dreams she had dreamed in sleep were sober 
realities in comparison with those she indulged in while 
awake. 

When Ernest was in his second year, Theobald, as I 
have already said, began to teach him to read. He began 
to whip him two days after he had begun to teach him. 

“It was painful,”’ as he said to Christina, but it was the 
only thing to do and it was done. The child was puny, 
white and sickly, so they sent continually for the doctor 
who dosed him with calomel and James’s powder. All was 
done in love, anxiety, timidity, stupidity, and impatience. 
They were stupid in little things; and he that is stupid in 
little will be stupid also in much. 


The Way of All Flesh 99 


Presently old Mr. Pontifex died, and then came the 
revelation of the little alteration he had made in his will 
simultaneously with his bequest to Ernest. It was rather 
hard to bear, especially as there was no way of conveying 
a bit of their minds to the testator now that he could no 
longer hurt them. As regards the boy himself anyone must 
see that the bequest would be an unmitigated misfortune 
‘to him. To leave him a small independence was perhaps 
the greatest injury which one could inflict upon a young 
man. It would cripple his energies, and deaden his desire 
for-active employment. Many a youth was led into evil 
courses by the knowledge that on arriving at majority he 
would come into a few thousands. They might surely 
have been trusted to have their boy’s interests at heart, 
and must be better judges of those interests than he, at 
twenty-one, could be expected to be: besides if Jonadab, 
the son of Rechab’s father—or perhaps it might be simpler 
under the circumstances to say Rechab at once—if Rechab, 
then, had left handsome legacies to his grandchildren—why 
Jonadab might not have found those children so easy to 
deal with, etc. ‘‘My dear,” said Theobald, after having 
discussed the matter with Christina for the twentieth time, 
““my dear, the only thing to guide and console us under 
misfortunes of this kind is to take refuge in practical work. 
I will go and pay a visit to Mrs. Thompson.” 

On those days Mrs. Thompson would be told that her 
sins were all washed white, etc., a little sooner and a little 
more peremptorily than on others. 


CHALLE RU XT] 


I usED to stay at Battersby for a day or two sometimes, 
while my godson and his brother and sister were children. 
I hardly know why I went, for Theobald and I grew more 
and more apart, but one gets into grooves sometimes, and 
the supposed friendship between myself and the Pontifexes 
continued to exist, though it was now little more than 


100 The Way of All Flesh 


rudimentary. My godson pleased me more than either of 
the other children, but he had not much of the buoyancy 
of childhood, and was more like a puny, sallow little old 
man than I liked. The young people, however, were very 
ready to be friendly. 

I remember Ernest and his brother hovered around me 
on the first day of one of these visits with their hands full 
of fading flowers, which they at length proffered me. On 
this I did what I suppose was expected: I inquired if there 
was a shop near where they could buy sweeties. They said 
there was, so I felt in my pockets, but only succeeded in 
finding two pence halfpenny in small money. This I gave 
them, and the youngsters, aged four and three, toddled off 
alone. Ere long they returned, and Ernest said, “We can’t 
get sweeties for all this money” (I felt rebuked, but no 
rebuke was intended); “‘we can get sweeties for this” 
(showing a penny), “‘and for this” (showing another 
penny), ““but we cannot get them for all this,’’ and he 
added the halfpenny to the two pence. I suppose they had 
wanted a twopenny cake, or something like that. I was 
amused, and left them to solve the difficulty their own way, 
being anxious to see what they would do. 

Presently Ernest said, “‘May we give you back this” 
(showing the halfpenny) “‘and not give you back this and 
this?”’ (showing the pence). I assented, and they gave a 
sigh of relief and went on their way rejoicing. A few more 
presents of pence and small toys completed the conquest 
and they began to take me into their confidence. 

They told me a good deal which I am afraid I ought 
not to have listened to. They said that if grandpapa had 
lived longer he would most likely have been made a Lord, 
and that then papa would have been the Honourable and 
Reverend, but that grandpapa was now in heaven singing 
beautiful hymns with Grandmamma Allaby to Jesus Christ, 
who was very fond of them; and that when Ernest was ill, 
his mamma had told him he need not be afraid of dying, 
for he would go straight to heaven, if he would only be 


The Way of All Flesh 101 


sorry for having done his lessons so badly and vexed his 
dear papa, and if he would promise never, never to vex him 
any more; and that when he got to heaven Grandpapa and 
Grandmamma Allaby would meet him, and he would be 
always with them, and they would be very good to him and 
teach him to sing ever such beautiful hymns, more beauti- 
ful by far than those which he was now so fond of, etc., etc.; 
but he did not wish to die, and was glad when he got better, 
for there were no kittens in heaven, and he did not think 
there were cowslips to make cowslip tea with. 

Their mother was plainly disappointed in them. ‘‘My 
children are none of them geniuses, Mr. Overton,” she said 
to me at breakfast one morning. ‘‘ They have fair abilities, 
and, thanks to Theobald’s tuition, they are forward for 
their years, but they have nothing like genius: genius 1s a 
thing apart from this, is it not?”’ 

Of course I said it was “a thing quite apart from this,’ 
but if my thoughts had been laid bare, they would have 
appeared as ‘“‘Give me my coffee immediately, ma’am, and 
don’t talk nonsense.”’ I have no idea what genius is, but 
so far as I can form any conception about it, I should say 
it was a stupid word which cannot be too soon abandoned 
to scientific and literary claqueurs. 

I do not know exactly what Christina expected, but I 
should imagine it was something like this: “My children 
ought to be all geniuses, because they are mine and Theo- 
bald’s, and it is naughty of them not to be; but, of course, 
they cannot be so good and clever as Theobald and I were, 
and if they show signs of being so it will be naughty of 
them. Happily, however, they are not this, and yet it is 
very dreadful that they are not. As for genius—hoity- 
toity, indeed—why, a genius should turn intellectual somer- 
saults as soon as it is born, and none of my children have 
yet been able to get into the newspapers. I will not have 
children of mine give themselves airs—it 1s enough for 
them that Theobald and I should do so.” 


She did not know, poor woman, that the true greatness 


b 


102 The Way of All Flesh 


wears an invisible cloak, under cover of which it goes in and 
out among men without being suspected; if its cloak does 
not conceal it from itself always, and from all others for 
many years, its greatness will ere long shrink to very ordi- 
nary dimensions. What, then, it may be asked, is the good 
of being great? The answer is that you may understand 
greatness better in others, whether alive or dead, and 
choose better company from these and enjoy and under- 
stand that company better when you have chosen it—also 
that you may be able to give pleasure to the best people 
and live in the lives of those who are yet unborn. ‘This, 
one would think, was substantial gain enough for greatness 
without its wanting to ride rough-shod over us, even when 
disguised as humility. 

I was there on a Sunday, and observed the rigour with 
which the young people were taught to observe the Sab- 
bath; they might not cut out things, nor use their paint- 
box on a Sunday, and this they thought rather hard, be- 
cause their cousins the John Pontifexes might do these 
things. Their cousins might play with their toy train on 
Sunday, but though they had promised that they would 
run none but Sunday trains, all traffic had been prohibited. 
One treat only was allowed them—on Sunday evenings 
they might choose their own hymns. 

In the course of the evening they came into the draw- 
ing-room, and, as an especial treat, were to sing some of 
their hymns to me, instead of saying them, so that I might 
hear how nicely they sang. Ernest was to choose the first 
hymn, and he chose one about some people who were to 
come to the sunset tree. I am no botanist, and do not 
know what kind of a tree a sunset tree is, but the words 
began, “‘Come, come, come; come to the sunset tree, for 
the day is past and gone.” The tune was rather pretty and 
had taken Ernest’s fancy, for he was unusually fond of 
music and had a sweet little child’s voice which he liked 
using. 

He was, however, very late in being able to sound a hard 


The Way of All Flesh 103 
“c” or “k,” and, instead of saying “‘Come,” he said ““Tum, 
tum, tum.” 

‘“‘Ernest,”’ said Theobald, from the armchair in front of 
the fire, where he was sitting with his hands folded before 
him, “‘don’t you think it would be very nice if you were to 
say ‘come’ like other people, instead of ‘tum’?” 

“TI do say tum,” replied Ernest, meaning that he had 
said “come.” 

Theobald was always in a bad temper on Sunday even- 
ing. Whether it is that they are as much bored with the 
day as their neighbours, or whether they are tired, or what- 
ever the cause may be, clergymen are seldom at their best 
on Sunday evening; I had already seen signs that evening 
that my host was cross, and was a little nervous at hearing 
Ernest say so promptly, “I do say tum,” when his papa 
had said he did not say it as he should. 

Theobald noticed the fact that he was being contra- 
dicted in a moment. He got up from his armchair and 
went to the piano. 

“No, Ernest, you don’t,” he said, ‘‘you say nothing of 
the kind, you say ‘tum,’ not ‘come.’ Now say ‘come’ after 
me, as I do.’ 

“Tum,” said Ernest, at once; “is that better?” I have 
no doubt he thought it was, but it was not. 

“Now, Ernest, you are not taking pains: you are not 
trying as you ought to do. It is high time you learned to 
say ‘come’; why, Joey can say ‘come,’ can’t you, Joey?” 

“Yeth, I can,” replied Joey, and he said something 
which was not far off “come.” 

“There, Ernest, do you hear that? There’s no difficulty 
about it, nor shadow of difficulty. Now, take your own 
time, think about it, and say ‘come’ after me.” 

The boy remained silent a few seconds and then said 
“tum” again. 

I laughed, but Theobald turned to me impatiently and 
said, ‘‘ Please do not laugh, Overton; it will make the boy 
think it does not matter, and it matters a great deal;”’ then 


6 


104 The Way of All Flesh 


turning to Ernest he said, “‘Now, Ernest, I will give you 
one more chance, and if you don’t say ‘come,’ I shall know 
that you are self-willed and naughty.”’ 

He looked very angry, and a shade came over-Ernest’s 
face, like that which comes upon the face of a puppy when 
it is being scolded without understanding why. The child 
saw well what was coming now, was frightened, and, of 
course, said “‘tum”’ once more. 

“Very well, Ernest,’ said his father, catching him 
angrily by the shoulder. “‘I have done my best to save 
you, but if you will have it so, you will,” and he lugged 
the little wretch, crying by anticipation, out of the room. 
A few minutes more and we could hear screams coming 
from the dining-room, across the hall which separated the 
drawing-room from the dining-room, and knew that poor 
Ernest was being beaten. 

“‘T have sent him up to bed,” said Theobald, as he re- 
turned to the drawing-room, ‘‘and now, Christina, I think 
we will have the servants in to prayers,’ and he rang the 
bell for them, red-handed as he was. 


CHAPTER XXIII 


THE manservant William came and set the chairs for the 
maids, and presently they filed in. First Christina’s maid, 
then the cook, then the housemaid, then William, and then 
the coachman. I sat opposite them, and watched their 
faces as Theobald read a chapter from the Bible. They 
were nice people, but more absolute vacancy I never saw 
upon the countenances of human beings. : 
Theobald began by reading a few verses from the Old 
Testament, according to some system of his own. On this 
occasion the passage came from the fifteenth chapter of 
Numbers: it had no particular bearing that I could see 
upon anything which was going on just then, but the spirit 
which breathed throughout the whole seemed to me to be 
so like that of Theobald himself, that I could understand 


The Way of Ail Flesh 105 


better after hearing it, how he came to think as he thought, 
and act as he acted. 
The verses are as follows— 


“But the soul that doeth aught presumptuously, whether he be born 
in the land or a stranger, the same reproacheth the Lord; and that soul 
shall be cut off from among his people. 

“Because he hath despised the word of the Lord, and hath broken 
His commandments, that soul shall be utterly cut off; his iniquity shall 
be upon him. 

“And while the children of Israel were in the wilderness they found 
a man that gathered sticks upon the Sabbath day. 

“And they that found him gathering sticks brought him unto Moses 
and Aaron, and unto all the congregation. 

“And they put him in ward because it was not declared what should 
be done to him. 

“And the Lord said unto Moses, the man shall be surely put to death; 
all the congregation shall stone him with stones without the camp. 

“And all the congregation brought him without the camp, and stoned 
him with stones, and he died; as the Lord commanded Moses. 

“And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, 

“Speak unto the children of Israel, and bid them that they make them 
fringes in the borders of their garments throughout their generations, 
and that they put upon the fringe of the borders a ribband of blue. 

“And it shall be unto you for a fringe, that ye may look upon it and 
remember all the commandments of the Lord, and do them, and that ye 
seek not after your own heart and your own eyes. 

“That ye may remember and do all my commandments and be holy 
unto your God. 

“T am the Lord your God which brought you out of the land of Egypt, 
to be your God: I am the Lord your God.” 


My thoughts wandered while Theobald was reading 
the above, and reverted to a little matter which I had 
observed in the course of the afternoon. 

It happened that some years previously, a swarm of 
bees had taken up their abode in the roof of the house 
under the slates, and had multiplied so that the drawing- 
room was a good deal frequented by these bees during the 
summer, when the windows were open. The drawing- 
room paper was of a pattern which consisted of bunches of 
red and white roses, and I saw several bees at different 


106 The Way of All Flesh 


times fly up to these bunches and try them, under the im- 
pression that they were real flowers; having tried one 
bunch, they tried the next, and the next, and the next, till 
they reached the one that was nearest the ceiling, then they 
went down bunch by bunch as they had ascended, till 
they were stopped by the back of the sofa; on this they 
ascended bunch by bunch to the ceiling again; and so on, 
and so on till I was tired of watching them. As I thought 
of the family prayers being repeated night and morning, 
week by week, month by month, and year by year, I could 
not help thinking how like it was to the way in which the 
bees went up the wall and down the wall, bunch by bunch, 
-- without ever suspecting that so many of the associated 
ideas could be present, and yet the main idea be wanting 
hopelessly, and for ever. 

When Theobald had finished reading we all knelt down 
and the Carlo Dolci and the Sassoferrato looked down upon 
a sea of upturned backs, as we buried our faces in our 
chairs I noted that Theobald prayed that we might be 
made “truly honest and conscientious”’ in all our dealings, 
and smiled at the introduction of the “truly.” Then my 
thoughts ran back to the bees and I reflected that after all 
it was perhaps as well, at any rate for Theobald, that our 
prayers were seldom marked by any very encouraging de- 
gree of response, for if I had thought there was the slight- 
est chance of my being heard I should have prayed that 
some one might ere long treat him as he had treated Ernest. 

Then my thoughts wandered on to those calculations 
which people make about waste of time and how much 
one can get done if one gives ten minutes a day to it, and 
I was thinking what improper suggestion I could make in 
connection with this and the time spent on family prayers 
which should at the same time be just tolerable, when 
I heard Theobald beginning, “‘The grace of our Lord Jesus 
Christ,” and in a few seconds the ceremony was over, 
and the servants filed out again as they had filed in. 

As soon as they had left the drawing-room Christina, 


The Way of All Flesh 107 


who was a little ashamed of the transaction to which I 
had been a witness, imprudently returned to it, and began 
to justify it, saying that it cut her to the heart, and that it 
cut Theobald to the heart a good deal more, but that “‘it 
was the only thing to be done.” 

I received this as coldly as I decently could, and by my 
silence during the rest of the evening showed that I dis- 
approved of what I had seen. 

Next day I was to go back to London, but before I 
went I said I should like to take some new-laid eggs back 
with me, so Theobald took me to the house of a labourer in 
the village who lived a stone’s throw from the Rectory as 
being likely to supply me with them. Ernest, for some 
reason or other, was allowed to come too. I think the 
hens had begun to sit, but at any rate eggs were scarce and 
the cottager’s wife could not find me more than seven or 
eight, which we proceeded to wrap up in separate pieces of 
paper so that I might take them to town safely. 

This operation was carried on upon the ground in front 
of the cottage door, and while we were in the midst of it 
the cottager’s little boy, a lad much about Ernest’s age, 
trod upon one of the eggs that was wrapped up in paper 
and broke it. 

“There now, Jack,” said his mother, ‘‘see what you’ve 
done, you’ve broken a nice egg and cost me a penny—here, 
Emma,” she added, calling her daughter, “‘take the child 
away, there’s a dear.” 

Emma came at once, and walked off with the youngster, 
taking him out of harm’s way. 

“‘Papa,” said Ernest, after we had left the house, “‘why 
didn’t Mrs. Heaton whip Jack when he trod on the egg?” 

I was spiteful enough to give Theobald a grim smile 
which said as plainly as words could have done that I 
thought Ernest had hit him rather hard. 

Theobald coloured and looked angry. “J dare say,’’ he 
said quickly, “that his mother will whip him now that we 
are gone.” 


108» The Way of All Flesh 


I was not going to have this and said I did not believe 
it, and so the matter dropped, but Theobald did not forget 
it, and my visits to Battersby were henceforth less frequent. 

On our return to the house we found the postman had 
arrived and had brought a letter appointing Theobald to 
a rural deanery which had lately fallen vacant by the death 
of one of the neighbouring clergy who had held the office 
for many years. The bishop wrote to Theobald most 
warmly, and assured him that he valued him as among the 
most hard-working and devoted of his parochial clergy. 
Christina, of course, was delighted, and gave me to under- 
stand that it was only an instalment of the much higher 
dignities which were in store for Theobald when his merits 
were more widely known. 

I did not then foresee how closely my godson’s life and 
mine were in after years to be bound up together; if I had, 
I should doubtless have looked upon him with different 
eyes and noted much to which I paid no attention at the 
time. As it was, I was glad to get away from him, for I 
could do nothing for him, or chose to say that I could not, 
and the sight of so much suffering was painful to me. 
A man should not only have his own way as far as possible, 
but he should only consort with things that are getting 
their own way so far that they are at any rate comfort- 
able. Unless for short times under exceptional circum- 
stances, he should not even see things that have been 
stunted or starved, much less should he eat meat that has 
been vexed by having been over-driven or underfed, or 
afflicted with any disease; nor should he touch vegetables 
that have not been well grown. For all these things cross 
a man; whatever a man comes in contact with in any way 
forms a cross with him which will leave him better or worse, 
and the better things he is crossed with the more likely 
he is to live long and happily. All things must be crossed 
a little or they would cease to live—but holy things, 
such for example as Giovanni Bellini’s saints, have been 
_&tossed with nothing but what is good of its kind. 


The Way of All Flesh 109 


IVA Re coe V 


Tue storm which I have described in the previous chapter 
was a sample of those that occurred daily for many years. 
No matter how clear the sky, it was always liable to cloud 
over now in one quarter now in another, and the thunder 
and lighting were upon the young people before they knew 
where they were. 

“And then, you know,” said Ernest to me, when I 
asked him not long since to give me more of his childish 
reminiscences for the beneft of my story, “we used to 
learn Mrs. Barbauld’s hymns; they were in prose, and there 
was one about the lion which began, ‘Come, and I will 
show you what is strong. The lion is strong; when he 
raiseth himself from his lair, when he shaketh his mane, 
when the voice of his roaring is heard the cattle of the 
field fly, and the beasts of the desert hide themselves, 
for he is very terrible.’ I used to say this to Joey and Char- 
lotte about my father himself when I got a little older, 
but they were always didactic, and said it was naughty of 
me. 

“One great reason why clergymen’s households are 
generally unhappy is because the clergyman is so much at 
home or close about the house. The doctor is out visiting 
patients half his time:.the lawyer and the merchant have 
ofiices away from home, but the clergyman has no official 
place of business which shall ensure his being away from 
home for many hours together at stated times. Our great 
days were when my father went for a day’s shopping to 
Gildenham. We were some miles from this place, and 
commissions used to accumulate on my father’s list till 
he would make a day of it and go and do the lot. As soon 
as his back was turned the air felt lighter; as soon as the 
hall door opened to let him in again, the law with its all- 
reaching ‘touch not, taste not, handle not’ was upon us 
again. The worst of it was that I could never trust Joey 
and Charlotte; they would go a good way with me and then 


110 The Way of All Flesh 


turn back, or even the whole way and then their con- 
sciences would compel them to tell papa and mamma. 
They liked running with the hare up to a certain point, but 
their instinct was towards the hounds. 

“Tt seems to me,” he continued, “‘that the family is a 
survival of the principle which is more logically embodied 
in the compound animal—and the compound animal is a 
form of life which has been found incompatible with high 
development. I would do with the family among mankind 
what nature has done with the compound animal, and con- 
fine it to the lower and less progressive races. Certainly 
there is no inherent love for the family system on the part 
of nature herself. Poll the forms of life and you will find 
it in a ridiculously small minority. The fishes know it 
not, and they get along quite nicely. The ants and the 
bees, who far outnumber man, sting their fathers to death 
as a matter of course, and are given to the atrocious 
mutilation of nine-tenths of the offspring committed to 
their charge, yet where shall we find communities more 
universally respected? Take the cuckoo again—is there 
any bird which we like better?” 

I saw he was running off from his own reminiscences and 
tried to bring him back to them, but it was no use. 

“What a fool,” he said, ““a man is to remember any- 
thing that happened more than a week ago unless it was 
pleasant, or unless he wants to make some use of it. 

““Sensible people get the greater part of their own 
dying done during their own lifetime. A man at five and 
thirty should no more regret not having had a happier 
childhood than he should regret not having been born a 
prince of the blood. He might be happier if he had been 
more fortunate in childhood, but, for aught he knows, if 
he had, something else might have happened which might 
have killed him long ago. If I had to be born again I would 
be born at Battersby of the same father and mother as 
before, and I would not alter anything that has ever hap- 
pened to me.” 


The Way of All Flesh 111 


The most amusing incident that I can remember about 
his childhood was that when he was about seven years old 
he told me he was going to have a natural child. I asked 
him his reasons for thinking this, and he explained that 
papa and mamma had always told him that nobody had 
children till they were married, and as long as he had be- 
lieved this of course he had had no idea of having a child 
till he was grown up; but not long since he had been read- 
ing Mrs. Markham’s history of England and had come 
upon the words, “‘ John of Gaunt had several natural chil- 
dren”; he had therefore asked his governess what a natural 
child was—were not all children natural? 

“Oh, my dear,” said she, ‘a natural child is a child a 
person has before he is married.’”’ On this it seemed to 
follow logically that if John of Gaunt had had children be- 
fore he was married, he, Ernest Pontifex, might have them 
also, and he would be obliged to me if I would tell him 
what he had better do under the circumstances. 

I enquired how long ago he had made this discovery. He 
said about a fortnight, and he did not know where to look 
for the child, for it might come at any moment. “You 
know,” he said, “‘babies come so suddenly; one goes to bed 
one night and next morning there is a baby. Why, it 
might die of cold if we are not on the lookout for it. I hope 
it will be a boy.” 

“And you have told your governess about this?’’ 

“Yes, but she puts me off and does not help me: she says 
it will not come for many years, and she hopes not then.” 

“Are you quite sure that you have not made any mis- 
take in all this?” 

“Oh, no; because Mrs. Burne, you know, called here a 
few days ago, and I was sent for to be looked at. And 
mamma held me out at arm’s length and said, ‘Is he Mr. 
Pontifex’s child, Mrs. Burne, or is he mine?’ Of course, 
she couldn’t have said this if papa had not had some of 
the children himself. I did think the gentleman had all 
the boys and the lady all the girls; but it can’t be like 


hie The Way of All Flesh 


this, or else mamma would not have asked Mrs. Burne to 
guess; but then Mrs. Burne said, ‘Oh, he’s Mr. Pontifex’s 
child of course,’ and I didn’t quite know what she meant 
by saying ‘of course’: it seemed as though I was right in 
thinking that the husband has all the boys and the wife 
all the girls; I wish you would explain to me all about 
Ite 

This I could hardly do, so I changed the conversation, 
after reassuring him as best I could. 


CHAPTER GXAAY 


TuREE or four years after the birth of her daughter, Chris- 
tina had had one more child. She had never been strong 
since she married, and had a presentiment that she should 
not survive this last confinement. She accordingly wrote 
the following letter, which was to be given, as she endorsed 
upon it, to her sons when Ernest was sixteen years old. It 
reached him on his mother’s death many years later, for it 
was the baby who died now, and not Christina. It was 
found among papers which she had repeatedly and care- 
fully arranged, with the seal already broken. This, I am 
afraid, shows that Christina had read it and thought it too 
creditable to be destroyed when the occasion that had 
called it forth had gone by. It is as follows— 


“BATTERSBY, March 15th, 1841. 

““My TWo DEAR BOoYs,—When this is put into your hands 
will you try to bring to mind the mother whom you lost 
in your childhood, and whom, I fear, you will almost have 
forgotten? You, Ernest, will remember her best, for you 
are past five years old, and the many, many times that she 
has taught you your prayers and hymns and sums and 
told you stories, and our happy Sunday evenings will not 
quite have passed from your mind, and you, Joey, though 
only four, will perhaps recollect some of these things. My 
dear, dear boys, for the sake of that mother who loved you 


The Way of All Flesh 113 


very dearly—and for the sake of your own happiness for 
ever and ever—attend to and try to remember, and from 
time to time read over again the last words she can ever 
speak to you. When [| think about leaving you all, two 
things press heavily upon me: one, your father’s sorrow 
(for you, my darlings, after missing me a little while, will 
soon forget your loss), the other, the everlasting welfare of 
my children. I know how long and deep the former will 
be, and I know that he will look to his children to be 
almost his only earthly comfort. You know (for I am 
certain that it will have been so), how he has devoted his 
life to you and taught you and laboured to lead you to all 
that is right and good. Oh, then, be sure that you are 
his comforts. Let him find you obedient, affectionate and 
attentive to his wishes, upright, self-denying and diligent; 
let him never blush for or grieve over the sins and follies 
of those who owe him such a debt of gratitude, and whose 
first duty it is to study his happiness. You have both of 
you a name which must not be disgraced, a father and a 
grandfather of whom to show yourselves worthy; your 
respectability and well-doing in life rest mainly with your- 
selves, but far, far beyond earthly respectability and well- 
doing, and compared with which they are as nothing, your 
eternal happiness rests with yourselves. You know your 
duty, but snares and temptations from without beset you, 
and the nearer you approach to manhood the more strongly 
will you feel this. With God’s help, with God’s word, and 
with humble hearts you will stand in spite of everything, 
but should you leave off seeking in earnest for the first, 
and applying to the second, should you learn to trust in 
yourselves, or to the advice and example of too many 
around you, you will, you must fall. Oh, ‘let God be true 
and every man a liar.’ He says you cannot serve Him and 
Mammon. He says that strait is the gate that leads to 
eternal life. Many there are who seek to widen it; they 
will tell you that such and such self-indulgences are but 
venial offenses—that this and that wordly compliance 1s 


114 The Way of All Flesh 


excusable and even necessary. The thing cannot be; for 
in a hundred and a hundred places He tells you so—look to 
your Bibles and seek there whether such counsel is true— 
and if not, oh, ‘halt not between two opinions,’ if God 
is the Lord follow Him; only be strong and of a good cour- 
age, and He will never leave you nor forsake you. Remem- 
ber, there is not in the Bible one law for the rich, and one 
for the poor—one for the educated and one for the ignorant. 
To all there is but one thing needful. 4// are to be living to 
God and their fellow-creatures, and not to themselves. A// 
must seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness 
—must deny themselves, be pure and chaste and charitable 
in the fullest and widest sense—all, ‘forgetting those things 
that are behind,’ must ‘press forward towards the mark, 
for the prize of the high calling of God.’ 

“And now I will add but two things more. Be true 
through life to each other, love as only brothers should 
do, strengthen, warn, encourage one another, and let who 
will be against you, let each feel that in his brother he has 
a firm and faithful friend who will be so to the end; and, 
oh! be kind and watchful over your dear sister; without 
mother or sisters she will doubly need her brothers’ love 
and tenderness and confidence. I am certain she will seek 
them, and will love you and try to make you happy; be 
sure then that you do not fail her, and remember, that were 
she to lose her father and remain unmarried, she would 
doubly need protectors. To you, then, I especially com- 
mend her. Oh! my three darling children, be true to each 
other, your Father, and your God. May He guide and 
bless you, and grant that in a better and happier world I 
and mine may meet again.—Your most affectionate mother, 

“CHRISTINA PONTIFEX.” 


From enquiries I have made, I have satisfied myself that 
most mothers write letters like this shortly before their 


confinements, and that fifty per cent. keep them afterwards, 
as Christina did. 


The Way of All Flesh 115 


CHAPTER XXVI 


Tue foregoing letter shows how much greater was Chris- 
tina’s anxiety for the eternal than for the temporal wel- 
fare of her sons. One would have thought she had sowed 
enough of such religious wild oats by this time, but she had 


plenty still to sow. To me it seems that those who are —— 


happy in this world are better and more lovable people 
than those who are not, and that thus in the event of a 
Resurrection and Day of Judgement, they will be the 
most likely to be deemed worthy of a heavenly mansion. 
Perhaps a dim unconscious perception of this was the rea- 
son why Christina was so anxious for Theobald’s earthly 
happiness, or was it merely due to a conviction that his 
eternal welfare was so much a matter of course, that it 
only remained to secure his earthly happiness? He was to 
“find his sons obedient, affectionate, attentive to his wishes, 
self-denying and diligent,”’ a goodly string forsooth of all 
the virtues most convenient to parents; he was never to 
have to blush for the follies of those “who owed him such 
a debt of gratitude,’ and “whose first duty it was to study 
his happiness.”’ How like maternal solicitude is this! 
Solicitude for the most part lest the offspring should come 
to have wishes and feelings of its own, which may occasion 
many difficulties, fancied or real. It is this that is at the 
bottom of the whole mischief; but whether this last propo- 
sition is granted or no, at any rate we observe that Chris- 
tina had a sufficiently keen appreciation of the duties of 
children towards their parents, and felt the task of fulfill-_ 
ing them adequately to be so difficult that she was very 
doubtful how far Ernest and Joey would succeed in master- 
ing it. It is plain in fact that her supposed parting glance 
upon them was one of suspicion. But there was no sus- 
picion of Theobald; that he should have devoted his life 
to his children—why, this was such a mere platitude, as 
almost to go without saying. 

How, let me ask, was it possible that a child only a little 


116 The Way of All Flesh 


past five years old, trained in such an atmosphere of 
prayers and hymns and sums and happy Sunday evenings 
—to say nothing of daily repeated beatings over the said 
prayers and hymns, etc., about which our authoress is 
silent—how was it possible that a lad so trained should 
grow up in any healthy or vigorous development, even 
though in her own way his mother was undoubtedly very 
fond of him, and sometimes told him stories? Can the eye 
of any reader fail to detect the coming wrath of God as 
about to descend upon the head of him who should be nur- 
tured under the shadow of such a letter as the foregoing? 

I have often thought that the Church of Rome does 
wisely in not allowing her priests to marry. Certainly it 
is a matter of common observation in England that the 
sons of clergymen are frequently unsatisfactory. The ex- 
planation is very simple, but is so often lost sight of that 
I may perhaps be pardoned for giving it here. 

The clergyman is expected to be a kind of human Sun- 
day. Things must not be done in him which are venial in 
the week-day classes. He is paid for this business of lead- 
ing a stricter life than other people. It is his raison détre. 
If his parishioners feel that he does this, they approve of 
him, for they look upon him as their own contribution 
towards what they deem a holy life. That is why the 
clergyman is so often called a vicar—he being the person 
whose vicarious goodness is to stand for that of those en- 
trusted to his charge. But his home is his castle as much 
as that of any other Englishman, and with him, as with 
others, unnatural tension in public is followed by exhaus- 
tion when tension is no longer necessary. His children 
are the most defenceless things he can reach, and it is on 

them in nine cases out of ten that he will relieve his mind. 
~ A clergyman, again, can hardly ever allow himself to 
look facts fairly in the face. It is his profession to sup- 
port one side; it is impossible, therefore, for him to make 
an unbiassed examination of the other. | 

We forget that every clergyman with a living or curacy, 


The Way of All Flesh Le 


is as much a paid advocate as the barrister who is trying 
to persuade a jury to acquit a prisoner. We should listen 
to him with the same suspense of judgement, the same full 
consideration of the arguments of the opposing counsel, 
as a judge does when he is trying a case. Unless we know 
these, and can state them in a way that our opponents 
would admit to be a fair representation of their views, 
we have no right to claim that we have formed an opinion 
at all. The misfortune is that by the law of the land one 
side only can be heard. 

Theobald and Christina were no exceptions to the gen- 
eral rule. When they came to Battersby they had every 
desire to fulfil the duties of their position, and to devote 
themselves to the honour and glory of God. But it was 
Theobald’s duty to see the honour and glory of God 
through the eyes of a Church which had lived three hun- 
dred years without finding reason to change a single one of 
its opinions. 

I should doubt whether he ever got as far as doubting 
the wisdom of his Church upon any single matter. His 
scent for possible mischief was tolerably keen; so was 
Christina’s, and it is likely that if either of them detected 
in him or herself the first faint symptoms of a want of 
faith they were nipped no less peremptorily in the bud, 
than signs of self-will in Ernest were—and I should imagine 
more successfully. Yet Theobald considered himself, and 
was generally considered to be, and indeed perhaps was, an 
exceptionally truthful person; indeed he was generally 
looked upon as an embodiment of all those virtues which 
make the poor respectable and the rich respected. In the 
course of time he and his wife became persuaded even to 
unconsciousness, that no one could even dwell under their 
roof without deep cause for thankfulness. Their children, 
their servants, their parishioners must be fortunate ipso 
facto that they were theirs. There was no road to happi- 
ness here or hereafter, but the road that they had them- 
selves travelled, no good people who did not think as they 


118 The Way of All Flesh 


did upon every subject, and no reasonable person who had 
wants the gratification of which would be inconvenient to 
them—Theobald and Christina. 

This was how it came to pass that their children were 
white and puny; they were suffering from home-sickness. 
They were starving, through being over-crammed with the 
wrong things. Nature came down upon them, but she did 
not come down on Theobald and Christina. Why should 
she? They were not leading a starved existence. There 
are two classes of people in this world, those who sin, and 
those who are sinned against; if a man must belong to 
either, he had better belong to the first than to the second. 


CHAPTER XXVII 


I wILL give no more of the details of my hero’s earlier 
years. Enough that he struggled through them, and at 
twelve years old knew every page of his Latin and Greek 
Grammars by heart. He had read the greater part of 
Virgil, Horace and Livy, and I do not know how many 
Greek plays: he was proficient in arithmetic, knew the 
first four books of Euclid thoroughly, and had a fair knowl- 
edge of French. It was now time he went to school, and 
to school he was accordingly to go, under the famous Dr. 
Skinner of Roughborough. 

Theobald had known Dr. Skinner slightly at Cambridge. 
He had been a burning and a shining light in every posi- 
tion he had filled from his boyhood upwards. He was a 
very great genius. Everyone knew this; they said, indeed, 
that he was one of the few people to whom the word genius 
could be applied without exaggeration. Had he not taken 
I don’t know how many University Scholarships in his 
freshman’s year? Had he not been afterwards Senior 
Wrangler, First Chancellor’s Medallist and I do not know 
how many more things besides? And then, he was such a 
wonderful speaker; at the Union Debating Club he had 
been without a rival, and had, of course, been president; 


The Way of All Flesh 119 


his moral character—a point on which so many geniuses 
were weak—was absolutely irreproachable; foremost of all, 
however, among his many great qualities, and perhaps 
more remarkable even than his genius was what biogra- 
phers have called “the simple-minded and childlike ear- 
nestness of his character,” an earnestness which might be 
perceived by the solemnity with which he spoke even about 
trifles. It is hardly necessary to say he was on the Liberal 
side in Politics. 

His personal appearance was not particularly prepos- 
sessing. He was about the middle height, portly, and had 
a couple of fierce grey eyes, that flashed fire from beneath 
a pair of great, bushy, beetling eyebrows and overawed 
all who came near him. It was in respect of his personal 
appearance, however, that, if he was vulnerable at all, his 
weak place was to be found. His hair when he was a young 
man was red, but after he had taken his degree he had a 
brain fever which caused him to have his head shaved; 
when he reappeared he did so wearing a wig, and one which 
was a good deal further off red than his own hair had been. 
He not only had never discarded his wig, but year by year 
it had edged itself a little more and a little more off red, 
till by the time he was forty, there was not a trace of red 
remaining, and his wig was brown. 

When Dr. Skinner was a very young man, hardly more 
than five-and-twenty, the head-mastership of Roughbor- 
ough Grammar School had fallen vacant, and he had been 
unhesitatingly appointed. ‘The result justified the selec- 
tion. Dr. Skinner’s pupils distinguished themselves at 
whichever University they went to. He moulded their 
minds after the model of his own, and stamped an impres- 
sion upon them which was indelible in after-life; whatever 
else a Roughborough man might be, he was sure to make 
everyone feel that he was a God-fearing earnest Christian 
and a Liberal, if not a Radical, in politics. Some boys, of 
course, were incapable of appreciating the beauty and lofti- 
ness of Dr. Skinner’s nature. Some such boys, alas! there 


120 The Way of All Flesh 


will be in every school; upon them Dr. Skinner’s hand was 
very properly a heavy one. His hand was against them, 
and theirs against him during the whole time of the con- 
nection between them. They not only disliked him, but 
they hated all that he more especially embodied, and 
throughout their lives disliked all that reminded them of 
him. Such boys, however, were in a minority, the spirit of 
the place being decidedly Skinnerian. 

I once had the honour of playing a game of chess with 
this great man. It was during the Christmas holidays, and 
I had come down to Roughborough for a few days to see 
Alethea Pontifex (who was then living there) on business. 
It was very gracious of him to take notice of me, for if I 
was a light of literature at all it was of the very lightest 
kind. 

It is true that in the intervals of business I had written 
a good deal, but my works had been almost exclusively 
for the stage, and for those theatres that devoted them- 
selves to extravaganza and burlesque. I had written many 
pieces of this description, full of puns and comic songs, 
and they had had a fair success, but my best piece had been 
a treatment of English history during the Reformation 
period, in the course of which I had introduced Cranmer, 
Sir Thomas More, Henry the Eighth, Catherine of Arragon, 
and Thomas Cromwell (in his youth better known as the 
Malleus Monachorum), and had made them dance a break- 
down. [had also dramatised “‘The Pilgrim’s Progress”’ for 
a Christmas Pantomime, and made an important scene of 
Vanity Fair, with Mr. Greatheart, Apollyon, Christiana, 
Mercy, and Hopeful as the principal characters. The 
orchestra played music taken from Handel’s best known 
works, but the time was a good deal altered, and altogether 
the tunes were not exactly as Handel left them. Mr. 
Greatheart was very stout and he had a red nose; he wore 
a Capacious waistcoat, and a shirt with a huge frill down the 
middle of the front. Hopeful was up to as much mischief 
as I could give him; he wore the costume of a young swell 


The Way of All Flesh 121 


of the period, and had a cigar in his mouth which was 
continually going out. 

Christiana did not wear much of anything: indeed it 
was said that the dress which the Stage Manager had 
originally proposed for her had been considered inade- 
quate even by the Lord Chamberlain, but this is not the 
case. With all these delinquencies upon my mind it was 
natural that I should feel convinced of sin while playing 
chess (which I hate) with the great Dr. Skinner of Rough- 
borough—the historian of Athens and editor of Demos- 
thenes. Dr. Skinner, moreover, was one of those who pride 
themselves on being able to set people at their ease at 
once, and | had been sitting on the edge of my chair all 
the evening. But I have always been very easily over- 
awed by a schoolmaster. 

The game had been a long one, and at half-past nine, 
when supper came in, we had each of us a few pieces re- 
maining. ‘‘What will you take for supper, Dr. Skinner?’ 
said Mrs. Skinner in a silvery voice. 

He made no answer for some time, but at last in a tone 
of almost superhuman solemnity, he said, first, ‘‘ Nothing,” 
and then, “‘Nothing whatever.” 

By and by, however, I had a sense come over me as 
though I were nearer the consummation of all things than 
I had ever yet been. The room seemed to grow dark, as 
an expression came over Dr. Skinner’s face, which showed 
that he was about to speak. The expression gathered 
force, the room grew darker and darker. “Stay,” he at 
length added, and I felt that here at any rate was an end 
to a suspense which was rapidly becoming unbearable. 
“‘Stay—I may presently take a glass of cold water—and 
a small piece of bread and butter.” 

As he said the word “‘butter”’ his voice sank to a hardly 
audible whisper; then there was a sigh as though of relief 
when the sentence was concluded, and the universe this 
time was safe. 

Another ten minutes of solemn sitenee finished the game. 


ad The Way of All Flesh 


The Doctor rose briskly from his seat and placed himself 
at the supper table. “‘Mrs. Skinner,” he exclaimed 
jauntily, ‘‘what are those mysterious-looking objects sur- 
rounded by potatoes?” 

“Those are oysters, Dr. Skinner.” 

“Give me some, and give Overton some.” 

And so on till he had eaten a good plate of oysters, 
a scallop shell of minced veal nicely browned, some apple 
tart, and a hunk of bread and cheese. This was the small 
piece of bread and butter. 

The cloth was now removed and tumblers with tea- 
spoons in them, a lemon or two and a jug of boiling water 
were placed upon the table. Then the great man unbent. 
His face beamed. 

“And what shall it be to drink?” he exclaimed persua- 
sively. ‘Shall it be brandy and water? No. It shall 
be gin and water. Gin is the more wholesome liquor.” 

So gin it was, hot and stiff, too. 

Who can wonder at him or do anything but pity him? 
Was he not head-master of Roughborough School? To 
whom had he owed money at any time? Whose ox had 
he taken, whose ass had he taken, or whom had he de- 
frauded? What whisper had ever been breathed against 
his moral character? If he had become rich it was by 
the most honourable of all means—his literary attain- 
ments; over and above his great works of scholarship, his 
*‘Meditations upon the Epistle and Character of St. 
Jude” had placed him among the most popular of English 
theologians; it was so exhaustive that no one who bought 
it need ever meditate upon the subject again—indeed it 
exhausted all who had anything to do with it. He had 
made £5000 by this work alone, and would very likely 
make another £5000 before he died. A man who had done 
all this and wanted a piece of bread and butter had a right 
to announce the fact with some pomp and circumstance. 
Nor should his words be taken without searching for what 
he used to call a ‘deeper and more hidden meaning.” 


The Way of All Flesh 123 


Those who searched for this even in his lightest utter- 
ances would not be without their reward. They would 
find that “‘bread and butter”? was Skinnerese for oyster- 
patties and apple tart, and “gin hot”’ the true transla- 
tion of water. 

But independently of their money value, his works had 
made him a lasting name in literature. So probably Gallio 
was under the impression that his fame would rest upon 
the treatises on natural history which we gather from 
Seneca that he compiled, and which for aught we know 
may have contained a complete theory of evolution; but 
the treatises are all gone and Gallio has become immortal 
for the very last reason in the world that he expected, and 
for the very last reason that would have flattered his 
vanity. He had become immortal because he cared noth- 
ing about the most important movement with which he 
was ever brought into connection (I wish people who are 
in search of immortality would lay the lesson to heart and 
not make so much noise about important movements), 
and so, if Dr. Skinner becomes immortal, it will probably 
be for some reason very different from the one which he 
so fondly imagined. 

Could it be expected to enter into the head of such a man 
as this that in reality he was making his money by corrupt- 
ing youth; that it was his paid profession to make the worse 
appear the better reason in the eyes of those who were too 
young and inexperienced to be able to find him out; that 
he kept out of sight of those whom he professed to teach 
material points of the argument, for the production of 
which they had a right to rely upon the honour of anyone 
who made professions of sincerity; that he was a passion- 
ate, half-turkey-cock, half-gander of a man whose sallow, 
bilious face and hobble-gobble voice could scare the timid, 
but who would take to his heels readily enough if he were 
met firmly; that his “Meditations on St. Jude,”’ such as 
they were, were cribbed without acknowledgment, and 
would have been beneath contempt if so many people 


124 The Way of All Flesh 


did not believe them to have been written honestly? 
Mrs. Skinner might have perhaps kept him a little more 
in his proper place if she had thought it worth while to 
try, but she had enough to attend to in looking after her 
household and seeing that the boys were well fed and, 
if they were ill, properly looked after—which she took 
good care they were. 


CHAPTER XXVIII 


ErneEsT had heard awful accounts of Dr. Skinner’s temper, 
and of the bullying which the younger boys at Roughbor- 
ough had to put up with at the hands of the bigger ones. 
He had now got about as much as he could stand, and felt 
as though it must go hard with him if his burdens of what- 
ever kind were to be increased. He did not cry on leaving 
home, but I am afraid he did on being told that he was 
getting near Roughborough. His father and mother were 
with him, having posted from home in their own carriage; 
Roughborough had as yet no railway, and as it was only 
some forty miles from Battersby, this was the easiest way 
of getting there. 

On seeing him cry, his mother felt flattered and caressed 
him. She said she knew he must feel very sad at leaving 
such a happy home, and going among people who, though 
they would be very good to him, could never, never be as 
good as his dear papa and she had been; still, she was her- 
self, if he only knew it, much more deserving of pity than he 
was, for the parting was more painful to her than it could 
possibly be to him, etc., and Ernest, on being told that his 
tears were for grief at leaving home, took it all on trust, 
and did not trouble to investigate the real cause of his 
tears. As they approached Roughborough he pulled him- 
self together, and was fairly calm by the time he reached 
Dr. Skinner’s. 

On their arrival they had luncheon with the Doctor and 
his wife, and then Mrs. Skinner took Christina over the 


The Way of All Flesh 125 


bedrooms, and showed her where her dear little boy was 
to sleep. 

Whatever men may think about the study of man, 
women do really believe the noblest study for womankind 
to be woman, and Christina was too much engrossed with 
Mrs. Skinner to pay much attention to anything else; I 
daresay Mrs. Skinner, too, was taking pretty accurate 
stock of Christina. Christina was charmed, as indeed 
she generally was with any new acquaintance, for she 
found in them (and so must we all) something of the nature 
of a cross; as for Mrs. Skinner, I imagine she had seen too 
many Christinas to find much regeneration in the sample 
now before her; I believe her private opinion echoed the 
dictum of a well-known head-master who declared that 
all parents were fools, but more especially mothers; she 
was, however, all smiles and sweetness, and Christina 
devoured these graciously as tributes paid more partic- 
ularly to herself, and such as no other mother would have 
been at all likely to have won. 

In the meantime Theobald and Ernest were with Dr. 
Skinner in his library—the room where new boys were 
examined and old ones had up for rebuke or chastisement. 
If the walls of that room could speak, what an amount of 
blundering and capricious cruelty would they not bear 
witness to! 

Like all houses, Dr. Skinner’s had its peculiar smell. In 
this case the prevailing odour was one of Russia leather, 
but along with it there was a subordinate savour as 
of a chemist’s shop. This came from a small laboratory 
in one corner of the room—the possession of which, to- 
gether with the free chattery and smattery use of such 
words as “carbonate,” “hyposulphite,” ‘‘ phosphate,” 
and ‘‘affinity,’” were enough to convince even the most 
sceptical that Dr. Skinner had a profound knowledge of 
chemistry. 

I may say in passing that Dr. Skinner had dabbled in 
a great many other things as well as chemistry. He was 


126 The Way of All Flesh 


a man of many small knowledges, and each of them dan- 
gerous. I remember Alethea Pontifex once said in her 
wicked way to me, that Dr. Skinner put her in mind of 
the Bourbon princes on their return from exile after the bat- 
tle of Waterloo, only that he was their exact converse; for 
whereas they had learned nothing and forgotten nothing, 
Dr. Skinner had learned everything and forgotten every- 
thing. And this puts me in mind of another of her wicked 
sayings about Dr. Skinner. She told me one day that he 
had the harmlessness of the serpent and the wisdom of the 
dove. 

But to return to Dr. Skinner’s library; over the chimney- 
piece there was a Bishop’s half length portrait of Dr. 
Skinner himself, painted by the elder Pickersgill, whose 
merit Dr. Skinner had been among the first to discern and 
foster. There were no other pictures in the library, but 
in the dining-room there was a fine collection, which the 
Doctor had got together with his usual consummate taste. 
He added to it largely in later life, and when it came to the 
hammer at Christie’s, as it did not long since, it was 
found to comprise many of the latest and most matured 
works of Solomon Hart, O’Neil, Charles Landseer, and 
more of our recent Academicians than I can at the moment 
remember. There were thus brought together and ex- 
hibited at one view many works which had attracted at- 
tention at the Academy Exhibitions, and as to whose 
ultimate destiny there had been some curiosity. The 
prices realised were disappointing to the executors, but, 
then, these things are so much a matter of chance. An 
unscrupulous writer in a well-known weekly paper had 
written the collection down. Moreover there had been 
one or two large sales a short time before Dr. Skinner’s, 
so that at this last there was rather a panic, and a reaction 
against the high prices that had ruled lately. 

The table of the library was loaded with books many 
deep; MSS. of all kinds were confusedly mixed up with © 
them,— boys’ exercises, probably, and examination papers 


The Way of All Flesh 127 


—but all littering untidily about. The room in fact was as 
depressing from its slatternliness as from its atmosphere 
of erudition. Theobald and Ernest as they entered it, 
stumbled over a large hole in the Turkey carpet, and the 
dust that rose showed how long it was since it had been 
taken up and beaten. This, I should say, was no fault 
of Mrs. Skinner’s but was due to the Doctor himself, who 
declared that if his papers were once disturbed it would be 
the death of him. Near the window was a green cage 
containing a pair of turtle doves, whose plaintive cooing 
added to the melancholy of the place. The walls were 
covered with book shelves from floor to ceiling, and on 
every shelf the books stood in double rows. It was hor- 
rible. Prominent among the most prominent upon the 
most prominent shelf were a series of splendidly bound 
volumes entitled “‘Skinner’s Works.” 

Boys are sadly apt to rush to conclusions, and Ernest 
believed that Dr. Skinner knew all the books in this ter- 
rible library, and that he, if he were to be any good, 
should have to learn them too. His heart fainted within 
him. 

He was told to sit on a chair against the wall and did so, 
while Dr. Skinner talked to Theobald upon the topics of 
the day. He talked about the Hampden Controversy 
then raging, and discoursed learnedly about ‘“ Praemu- 
nire’; then he talked about the revolution which had just 
broken out in Sicily, and rejoiced that the Pope had re- 
fused to allow foreign troops to pass through his domin- 
ions in order to crush it. Dr. Skinner and the other masters 
took in the Times among them, and Dr. Skinner echoed 
the Times’ leaders. In those days there were no penny 
papers and Theobald only took in the Spectator—for he 
was at that time on the Whig side in politics; besides this 
he used to receive the Ecclesiastical Gazette once a month, 
but he saw no other papers, and was amazed at the ease 
and fluency with which Dr. Skinner ran from subject to 
subject. 


128 The Way of All Flesh 


The Pope’s action in the matter of the Sicilian revolu- 
tion naturally led the Doctor to the reforms which his 
Holiness had introduced into his dominions, and he laughed 
consumedly over the joke which had not long since ap- 
peared in Punch, to the effect that Pio ‘‘No, No,” should 
rather have been named Pio ‘‘ Yes, Yes,’’ because, as the 
Doctor explained, he granted everything his subjects 
asked for. Anything like a pun went straight to Dr. 
Skinner’s heart. 

Then he went on to the matter of these reforms them- 
selves. They opened up a new era in the history of Chris- 
tendom, and would have such momentous and far-reaching 
consequences, that they might even lead to a reconcilia- 
tion between the Churches of England and Rome. Dr. 
Skinner had lately published a pamphlet upon this sub- 
ject, which had shown great learning, and had attacked 
the Church of Rome in a way which did not promise much 
hope of reconciliation. He had grounded his attack upon 
the letters A.M.D.G., which he had seen outside a Roman 
Catholic chapel, and which of course stood for 4d Ma- 
riam Dei Genetricem. Could anything be more idolatrous? 

I am told, by the way, that I must have let my memory 
play me one of the tricks it often does play me, when I 
said the Doctor proposed 4d Mariam Det Genetricem as 
the full harmonies, so to speak, which should be con- 
structed upon the bass A.M.D.G., for that this is bad 
Latin, and that the doctor really harmonised the letters 
thus: Ave Maria Dei Genetrix. No doubt the doctor did 
what was right in the matter of Latinity—I have forgot- 
ten the little Latin I ever knew, and am not going to look 
the matter up, but I believe the doctor said 4d Mariam 
Det Genetricem, and if so we may be sure that 4d Mariam 
Dei Genetricem is good enough Latin at any rate for ec- 
clesiastical purposes. 

The reply of the local priest had not yet appeared, and 
Dr. Skinner was jubilant, but when the answer appeared, 
and it was solemnly declared that A.M.D.G. stood for 


The Way of All Flesh 129 


nothing more dangerous than 4d Majorem Det Gloriam, 
it was felt that though this subterfuge would not succeed 
with any intelligent Englishman, still it. was a pity Dr. 
Skinner had selected this particular point for his attack, 
for he had to leave his enemy in possession of the field. 
When people are left in possession of the field, spectators 
have an awkward habit of thinking that their adversary 
does not dare to come to the scratch. 

Dr. Skinner was telling Theobald all about his pam- 
phlet, and I doubt whether this gentleman was much more 
comfortable than Ernest himself. He was bored, for in 
his heart he hated Liberalism, though he was ashamed to 
say so, and, as I have said, professed to be on the Whig 
side. He did not want to be reconciled to the Church of 
Rome; he wanted to make all Roman Catholics turn Prot- 
estants, and could never understand why they would 
not do so; but the Doctor talked in such a truly liberal 
spirit, and shut him up so sharply when he tried to edge 
in a word or two, that he had to let him have it all his own 
way, and this was not what he was accustomed to. He 
was wondering how he could bring it to an end, when a 
diversion was created by the discovery that Emest had 
begun to cry—doubtless:through an intense but inartic- 
ulate sense of a boredom greater than he could bear. 
He was evidently in a highly nervous state, and a good 
deal upset by the excitement of the morning; Mrs. Skinner 
therefore, who came in with Christina at this juncture, 
proposed that he should spend the afternoon with Mrs. 
Jay, the matron, and not be introduced to his young com- 
panions until the following morning. His father and 
mother now bade him an affectionate farewell, and the lad 
was handed over to Mrs. Jay. 

O schoolmasters—if any of you read this book—bear 
in mind when any particularly timid, drivelling urchin is 
brought by his papa into your study, and you treat him 
with the contempt which he deserves, and afterwards 
make his life a burden to him for years—bear in mind that 


130 The Way of All Flesh 


it is exactly in the disguise of such a boy as this that your 
future chronicler will appear. Never see a wretched little 
heavy-eyed mite sitting on the edge of a chair against 
your study wall without saying to yourselves, “‘ Perhaps 
this boy is he who, if I am not careful, will one day tell 
the world what manner of man I was.” If even two or 
three schoolmasters learn this lesson and remember it, 
the preceding chapters will not have been written in vain. 


CHAPTER XXIX 


Soon after his father and mother had left him Ernest 
dropped asleep over a book which Mrs. Jay had given him, 
and he did not awake till dusk. Then he sat down on a 
stool in front of the fire, which showed pleasantly in the 
late January twilight, and began to muse. He felt weak, 
feeble, ill at ease and unable to see his way out of the 
' innumerable troubles that were before him. Perhaps, he 
said to himself, he might even die, but this, far from being 
an end of his troubles, would prove the beginning of new 
ones; for at the best he would only go to Grandpapa 
Pontifex and Grandmamma Allaby, and though they 
would perhaps be more easy to get'on with than papa and 
mamma, yet they were undoubtedly not so really good, 
and were more worldly; moreover they were grown-up 
people—especially Grandpapa Pontifex, who so far as he 
could understand had been very much grown-up, and he 
did not know why, but there was always something that 
kept him from loving any grown-up people very much— 
except one or two of the servants, who had indeed been as 
nice as anything that he could imagine. Besides even if he 
were to die and go to Heaven he supposed he should have 
to complete his education somewhere. 

In the meantime his father and mother were rolling 
along the muddy roads, each in his or her own corner of 
the carriage, and each revolving many things which were 
and were not to come to pass. Times have changed since 


The Way of All Flesh 131 


I last showed them to the reader as sitting together si- 
lently in a carriage, but except as regards their mutual 
relations, they have altered singularly little. When I was 
younger I used to think the Prayer Book was wrong in 
requiring us to say the General Confession twice a week 
from childhood to old age, without making provision for 
our not being quite such great sinners at seventy as we 
had been at seven; granted that we should go to the wash 
like table-cloths at least once a week, still I used to think 
a day ought to come when we should want rather less 
rubbing and scrubbing at. Now that I have grown older 
myself I have seen that the Church has estimated probabili- 
ties better than I had done. 

The pair said not a word to one another, but watched 
the fading light and naked trees, the brown fields with 
here and there a melancholy cottage by the roadside, and 
the rain that fell fast upon the carriage windows. It was 
a kind of afternoon on which nice people for the most part 
like to be snug at home, and Theobald was a little snappish 
at reflecting how many miles he had to post before he could 
be at his own fireside again. However, there was nothing 
for it, so the pair sat quietly and watched the roadside 
objects flit by them, and get greyer and grimmer as the 
light faded. 

Though they spoke not to one another, there was one 
nearer to each of them with whom they could converse 
freely. “‘I hope,” said Theobald to himself, “‘I hope he’ll 
work—or else that Skinner will make him. I don’t like 
Skinner, I never did like him, but he is unquestionably a 
man of genius, and no one turns out so many pupils who 
succeed at Oxford and Cambridge, and that is the best test. 
I have done my share towards starting him well. Skinner 
said he had been well grounded and was very forward. I 
suppose he will presume upon it now and do nothing, for 
his nature is an idle one. He is not fond of me, I’m sure 
heis not. He ought to be after all the trouble I have taken 
with him, but he is ungrateful and selfish. It is an unnat- 


132 The Way of All Flesh 


ural thing for a boy not to be fond of his own father. If 
he was fond of me I should be fond of him, but I cannot 
like a son who, I am sure, dislikes me. He shrinks out of 
my way whenever he sees me coming near him. He will 
not stay five minutes in the same room with me if he can 
help it. He 1s deceitful. He would not want to hide him- 
self away so much if he were not deceitful. That is a bad 
sign and one which makes me fear he will grow up extrava- 
gant. I am sure he will grow up extravagant. I should 
have given him more pocket-money if I had not known 
this—but what is the good of giving him pocket-money? 
It is all gone directly. If he doesn’t buy something with it 
he gives it away to the first little boy or girl he sees who 
takes his fancy. He forgets that it’s my money he is 
giving away. I give him money that he may have money 
and learn to know its uses, not that he may go and squan- 
der it immediately. I wish he was not so fond of music; it 
will interfere with his Latin and Greek. I will stop it au 
much as I can. Why, when he was translating Livy the 
other day he slipped out Handel’s name in mistake for 
Hannibal’s, and his mother tells me he knows half the tuney: 
in the ‘Messiah’ by heart. What should a boy of his age 
know about the ‘Messiah’? If I had shown half as many 
dangerous tendencies when I was a boy, my father would 
have apprenticed me to a greengrocer, of that I’m very 
sure,’’ etc., etc. 

Then his thoughts turned to Egypt and the tenth plague. 
It seemed to him that if the little Egyptians had been any- 
thing like Ernest, the plague must have been something 
very like a blessing in disguise. If the Israelites were to 
come to England now he should be greatly tempted not to 
let them go. 

Mrs. Theobald’s thoughts ran in a different current. 
‘Lord Lonsford’s grandson—it’s a pity his name is Figgins; 
however, blood is blood as much through the female line 
as the male; indeed, perhaps even more so if the truth 
were known. I wonder who Mr. Figgins was. I think Mrs. 


The Way of All Flesh 133 


Skinner said he was dead; however, I must find out all 
about him. It would be delightful if young Figgins were to 
ask Ernest home for the holidays. Who knows but he 
might meet Lord Lonsford himself, or at any rate some 
of Lord Lonsford’s other descendants?” 

Meanwhile the boy himself was still sitting moodily 
before the fire in Mrs. Jay’s room. ‘Papa and mamma,” 
he was saying to himself, “are much better and cleverer 
than anyone else, but, I, alas! shall never be either good 
or clever.”’ 

Mrs. Pontifex continued— 

“Perhaps it would be best to get young Figgins on a 
visit to ourselves first. That would be charming. Theo- 
bald would not like it, for he does not like children; I 
must see how I can manage it, for it would be so nice to 
have young Figgins—or stay! Ernest shall go and stay 
with Figgins and meet the future Lord Lonsford, who I 
should think must be about Ernest’s age, and then if he 
and Ernest were to become friends Ernest might ask him 
to Battersby, and he might fall in love with Charlotte. I 
think we have done most wisely in sending Ernest to Dr. 
Skinner’s. Dr. Skinner’s piety is no less remarkable than 
his genius. One can tell these things at a glance, and he 
must have felt it about me no less strongly than I about 
him. I think he seemed much struck with Theobald and 
myself—indeed, Theobald’s intellectual power must im- 
press any one, and I was showing, I do believe, to my best 
advantage. When I smiled at him and said I left my boy in 
his hands with the most entire confidence that he would be 
as well cared for as if he were at my own house, I am 
sure he was greatly pleased. I should not think many of 
the mothers who bring him boys can impress him so fa- 
vourably, or say such nice things to him as I did. My smile 
is sweet when I desire to make it so. I never was perhaps 
exactly pretty, but I was always admitted to be fascinat- 
ing. Dr. Skinner is a very handsome man—too good on 


the whole I should say for Mrs. Skinner. Theobald says 


134 The Way of All Flesh 


he is not handsome, but men are no judges, and he has such 
a pleasant, bright face. I think my bonnet became me. 
As soon as I get home I will tell Chambers to trim my blue 
and yellow merino with it Ct Cn tOtcr 

All this time the letter which has been given above was 
lying in Christina’s private little Japanese cabinet, read 
and re-read and approved of many times over, not to say, 
if the truth were known, rewritten more than once, though 
dated as in the first instance—and this, too, though Chris- 
tina was fond enough of a joke in a small way. 

Ernest, still in Mrs. Jay’s room, mused onward. ‘“‘Grown- 
up people,” he said to himself, ‘“when they were ladies 
and gentlemen, never did naughty things, but he was al- 
ways doing them. He had heard that some grown-up 
people were worldly, which of course was wrong, still this 
was quite distinct from being naughty, and did not get 
them punished or scolded. His own papa and mamma 
were not even worldly; they had often explained to him 
that they were exceptionally unworldly; he well knew that 
they had never done anything naughty since they had been 
children, and that even as children they had been nearly 
faultless. Oh how different from himself! When should he 
learn to love his papa and mamma as they had loved 
theirs? How could he hope ever to grow up to be as good 
and wise as they, or even tolerably good and wise? Alas! 
never. It could not be. He did not love his papa and 
mamma, in spite of all their goodness both in themselves 
and to him. He hated papa, and he did not like mamma, 
and this was what none but a bad and ungrateful boy 
would do after all that had been done for him. Besides, 
he did not like Sunday; he did not like anything that was 
really good; his tastes were low and such as he was 
ashamed of. He liked people best if they sometimes swore 
a little, so long as it was not at him. As for his Cate- 
chism and Bible readings he had no heart inthem. He had 
never attended to a sermon in his life. Even when he had 
been taken to hear Mr. Vaughan at Brighton, who, as 





The Way of All Flesh 135 


everyone knew, preached such beautiful sermons for chil- 
dren, he had been very glad when it was all over, nor did he 
believe he could get through church at all if it was not for 
the voluntary upon the organ and the hymns and chanting. 
The Catechism was awful. He had never been able to 
understand what it was that he desired of his Lord God and 
Heavenly Father, nor had he yet got hold of a single idea in 
connection with the word Sacrament. His duty towards 
his neighbour was another bugbear. It seemed to him that 
he had duties towards everybody, lying in wait for him 
upon every side, but that nobody had any duties towards 
him. Then there was that awful and mysterious word 
“business.” What did it all mean? What was ‘business’? 
His papa was a wonderfully good man of business, his 
mamma had often told him so—but he should never be one. 
It was hopeless, and very awful, for people were continu- 
ally telling him that he would have to earn his own living. 
No doubt, but how—considering how stupid, idle, ignorant, 
self-indulgent, and physically puny he was? All grown-up 
people were clever, except servants—and even these were 
cleverer than ever he should be. Oh, why, why, why, 
could not people be born into the world as grown-up per- 
sons? ‘Then he thought of Casabianca. He had been 
examined in that poem by his father not long before. 
“When only would he leave his position? To whom did 
he call? Did he get an answer? Why? How many times 
did he call upon his father? What happened to him? 
What was the noblest life that perished there? Do you 
think so? Why do you think so?’ And all the rest of it. 
Of course he thought Casabianca’s was the noblest life that 
perished there; there could be no two opinions about that; 
it never occurred to him that the moral of the poem was 
that young people cannot begin too soon to exercise dis- 
cretion in the obedience they pay to their papa and 
mamma. Qh, no! the only thought in his mind was that he 
should never, never have been like Casabianca, and that 
Casabianca would have despised him so much, if he could 


136 The Way of All Flesh 


have known him, that he would not have condescended to 
speak to him. There was nobody else in the ship worth 
reckoning at all: it did not matter how much they were 
blown up. Mrs. Hemans knew them all and they were a 
very indifferent lot. Besides, Casabianca was so good- 
looking and came of such a good family.” 

And thus his small mind kept wandering on till he 
could follow it no longer, and again went off into a doze. 


CHAPTER XXX 


NeExT morning Theobald and Christina arose feeling a little 
tired from their journey, but happy in that best of all 
happiness, the approbation of their consciences. It would 
be their boy’s fault henceforth if he were not good, and as 
prosperous as it was at all desirable that he should be. 
What more could parents do than they had done? The 
answer “‘Nothing”’ will rise as readily to the lips of the 
reader as to those of Theobald and Christina themselves. 
_A few days later the parents were gratified at receiv- 
ing the following letter from their son— 


“My Dear Mamma,—I am very well. Dr. Skinner 
made me do about the horse free and exulting roaming in 
the wide fields in Latin verse, but as I had done it with 
Papa I knew how to do it, and it was nearly all right, and 
he put me in the fourth form under Mr. Templer, and I 
have to begin a new Latin grammar not like the old, but 
much harder. I know you wish me to work, and I will try 
very hard. With best love to Joey and Charlotte, and to 
Papa, I remain, your affectionate son, ERNEST. ” 


Nothing could be nicer or more proper. It really did 
seem as though he were inclined to turn over a new leaf. 
The boys had all come back, the examinations were over, 
and the routine of the half year began; Ernest found that 
his fears about being kicked about and bullied were exag- 


The Way of All Flesh 137 


gerated. Nobody did anything very dreadful to him. He 
had to run errands between certain hours for the elder 
boys, and to take his turn at greasing the footballs, and 
so forth, but there was an excellent spirit in the school 
as regards bullying. 

Nevertheless, he was far from happy. Dr. Skinner was 
much too like his father. True, Ernest was not thrown in 
with him much yet, but he was always there; there was 
no knowing at what moment he might not put in an ap- 
pearance, and whenever he did show, it was to storm about 
something. He was like the lion in the Bishop of Oxford’s 
Sunday story—always liable to rush out from behind some 
bush and devour some one when he was least expected. He 
called Ernest “‘an audacious reptile’ and said he wondered 
the earth did not open and swallow him up because he 
pronounced Thalia with a short i. ‘And this to me,” he 
thundered, “‘who never made a false quantity in my life.” 
Surely he would have been a much nicer person if he had 
made false quantities in his youth like other people. Er- 
nest could not imagine how the boys in Dr. Skinner’s form 
continued to live; but yet they did, and even throve, and, 
strange as it may seem, idolised him, or professed to do so 
in after life. To Ernest it seemed like living on the crater 
of Vesuvius. 

He was himself, as had been said, in Mr. Templer’s form, 
who was snappish, but not downright wicked, and was 
very easy to crib under. Ernest used to wonder how Mr. 
Templer could be so blind, for he supposed Mr. ‘Templer 
must have cribbed when he was at school, and would ask 
himself whether he should forget his youth when he got old, 
as Mr. Templer had forgotten his. He used to think he 
never could possibly forget any part of it. 

Then there was Mrs. Jay, who was sometimes very 
alarming. A few days after the half year had commenced, 
there being some little extra noise in the hall, she rushed 
in with her spectacles on her forehead and her cap strings 
flying, and called the boy whom Ernest had selected as 


138 The Way of All Flesh 


his hero the “rampingest-scampingest-rackety-tackety- 
tow-row-roaringest boy in the whole school.” But she used 
to say things that Ernest liked. Ifthe Doctor went out to 
dinner, and there were no prayers, she would come in and 
say, ‘‘ Young gentlemen, prayers are excused this evening”; 
and, take her for all in all, she was a kindly old soul 
enough. F 

Most boys soon discover the difference between noise 
and actual danger, but to others it is so unnatural to men- 
ace, unless they mean mischief, that they are long before 
they leave off taking turkey-cocks and ganders au sérieux. 
Ernest was one of the latter sort, and found the atmosphere 
of Roughborough so gusty that he was glad to shrink out 
of sight and out of mind whenever he could. He disliked 
the games worse even than the squalls of the class-room 
and hall, for he was still feeble, not filling out and attaining 
his full strength till a much later age than most boys. This 
was perhaps due to the closeness with which his father 
had kept him to his books in childhood, but I think in part 
also to a tendency towards lateness in attaining maturity, 
hereditary in the Pontifex family, which was one also of 
unusual longevity. At thirteen or fourteen he’was a mere 
bag of bones, with upper arms about as thick as the wrists 
of other boys of his age; his little chest was pigeon- 
breasted; he appeared to have no strength or stamina 
whatever, and finding he always went to the wall in physi- 
cal encounters, whether undertaken in jest or earnest, even 
with boys shorter than himself, the timidity natural to 
childhood increased upon him to an extent that I am 
afraid amounted to cowardice. ‘This rendered him even 
less capable than he might otherwise have been, for as con- 
fidence increases power, so want of confidence increases 
impotence. After he had had the breath knocked out of 
him and been well shinned half a dozen times in scrim- 
mages at football—scrimmages in which he had become 
involved sorely against his will—he ceased to see any 
further fun in football, and shirked that noble game 


The Way of All Flesh 139 


in a way that got him into trouble with the elder boys, 
who would stand no shirking on the part of the younger 
ones. 

He was as useless and ill at ease with cricket as with 
football, nor in spite of all his efforts could he ever throw 
a ball or a stone. It soon became plain, therefore, to 
everyone that Pontifex was a young muff, a mollycoddle, 
not to be tortured, but still not to be rated highly. He 
was not, however, actively unpopular, for it was seen that 
he was quite square inter pares, not at all vindictive, easily 
pleased, perfectly free with whatever money he had, 
no greater lover of his school work than of the games, and 
generally more inclinable to moderate vice than to im- 
moderate virtue. 

These qualities will prevent any boy from sinking very 
low in the opinion of his school-fellows; but Ernest 
thought he had fallen lower than he probably had, and 
hated and despised himself for what he, as much as anyone 
else, believed to be his cowardice. He did not like the 
boys whom he thought like himself. His heroes were 
strong and vigorous, and the less they inclined towards him 
the more he worshipped them. All this made him very un- 
happy, for it never occurred to him that the instinct which 
made him keep out of games for which he was ill adapted, 
was more reasonable than the reason which would have 
driven him into them. Nevertheless he followed his in- 
stinct for the most part, rather than his reason. Sapiens 
Ssuam $1 sapientiam norit. 


CHAPTER XXXII 


Wiru the masters Ernest was ere long in absolute disgrace. 
He had more liberty now than he had known heretofore. 
The heavy hand and watchful eye of Theobald were no 
longer about his path and about his bed and spying out 
all his ways; and punishment by way of copying out lines 
of Virgil was a very different thing from the savage beat- 


140 The Way of All Flesh 


ings of his father. The copying out in fact was often less 
trouble than the lesson. Latin and Greek had nothing in 
them which commended them to his instinct as likely to 
bring him peace even at the last; still less did they hold 
out any hope of doing so within some more reasonable 
time. The deadness inherent in these defunct languages 
themselves had never been artificially counteracted by. a 
system of bona fide rewards for application. There had 
been any amount of punishments for want of application, 
but no good comfortable bribes had baited the hook which 
was to allure him to his good. 

Indeed, the more pleasant side of learning to do this 
or that had always been treated as something with which 
Ernest had no concern. We had no business with pleasant 
things at all, at any rate very little business, at any rate 
not he, Ernest. We were put into this world not for pleas- 
ure but duty, and pleasure had in it something more or 
less sinful in its very essence. If we were doing anything 
we liked, we, or at any rate he, Ernest, should apologise 
and think he was being very mercifully dealt with, if not 
at once told to go and do something else. With what he 
did not like, however, it was different; the more he disliked 
a thing the greater the presumption that it was right. It 
never occurred to him that the presumption was in favour 
of the rightness of what was most pleasant, and that the 
onus of proving that it was not right lay with those who 
disputed its being so. I have said more than once that 
he believed in his own depravity; never was there a little 
mortal more ready to accept without cavil whatever he was 
told by those who were in authority over him: he thought, 
at least, that he believed it, for as yet he knew nothing 
of that other Ernest that dwelt within him, and was so 
much stronger and more real than the Ernest of which he 
was conscious. The dumb Emest persuaded with inarticu- 
late feelings too swift and sure to be translated into such de- 
batable things as words, but practically insisted as follows— 

“Growing is not the easy, plain sailing business that it 


The Way of All Flesh 14] 


is commonly supposed to be: it is hard work—harder than 
any but a growing boy can understand; it requires atten- 
tion, and you are not strong enough to attend to your 
bodily growth, and to your lessons too. Besides, Latin and 
Greek are great humbugs; the more people know of them 
the more odious they generally are; the nice people whom 
you delight in either never knew any at all or forgot what 
they had learned as soon as they could; they never turned 
to the classics after they were no longer forced to read 
them; therefore they are nonsense, all very well in their 
own time and country, but out of place here. Never learn 
anything until you find you have been made uncomfort- 
able for a good long while by not knowing it; when you 
find that you have occasion for this or that knowledge, 
or foresee that you will have occasion for it shortly, the 
sooner you learn it the better, but till then spend your 
time in growing bone and muscle; these will be much more 
useful to you than Latin and Greek, nor will you ever be 
able to make them if you do not do so now, whereas Latin 
and Greek can be acquired at any time by those who want 
them. 

“You are surrounded on every side by lies which would 
deceive even the elect, if the elect were not generally so 
uncommonly wide awake; the self of which you are con- 
scious, your reasoning and reflecting self, will believe these 
lies and bid you act in accordance with them. This con- 
scious self of yours, Ernest, is a prig begotten of prigs and 
trained in priggishness; I will not allow it to shape your 
actions, though it will doubtless shape your words for many 
a year to come. Your papa is not here to beat you now; 
this is a change in the conditions of your existence, and 
should be followed by changed actions. Obey me, your 
true self, and things will go tolerably well with you, but 
only listen to that outward and visible old husk of yours 


which is called your father, and I will rend you in pieces | 


even unto the third and fourth generation as one who has 
hated God; for I, Ernest, am the God who made you.” 


142 The Way of All Flesh 


How shocked Ernest would have been if he could have 
heard the advice he was receiving; what consternation too 
there would have been at Battersby; but the matter did 
not end here, for this same wicked inner self gave him bad 
advice about his pocket money, the choice of his compan- 
ions, and on the whole Ernest was attentive and obedient 
to its behests, more so than Theobald had been. The con- 
sequence was that he learned little, his mind growing more 
slowly and his body rather faster than heretofore: and 
when by and by his inner self urged him in directions 
where he met obstacles beyond his strength to combat, he 
took—though with passionate compunctions of conscience 
—the nearest course to the one from which he was debarred 
which circumstances would allow. 

It may be guessed that Ernest was not the chosen 
friend of the more sedate and well-conducted youths then 
studying at Roughborough. Some of the less desirable 
boys used to go to public-houses and drink more beer than 
was good for them; Ernest’s inner self can hardly have told 
him to ally himself to these young gentlemen, but he did 
so at an early age, and was sometimes made pitiably sick 
by an amount of beer which would have produced no 
effect upon a stronger boy. Ernest’s inner self must have — 
interposed at this point and told him that there was not 
much fun in this, for he dropped the habit ere it had taken 
firm hold of him, and never resumed it; but he contracted 
another at the disgracefully early age of between thirteen 
and fourteen which he did not relinquish, though to the 
present day his conscious self keeps dinging it into him 
that the less he smokes the better. 

And so matters went on till my hero was nearly fourteen 
years old. If by that time he was not actually a young 
blackguard, he belonged to a debatable class between 
the sub-reputable and the upper disreputable, with per- 
haps rather more leaning to the latter except so far as 
vices of meanness were concerned, from which he was fairly 
free. I gather this partly from what Ernest has told me, - 


The Way of All Flesh 143 


and partly from his school bills which I remember Theobald 
showed me with much complaining. There was an in- 
stitution at Roughborough called the monthly merit 
money; the maximum sum which a boy of Ernest’s age 
could get was four shillings and sixpence; several boys got 
four shillings and few less than sixpence, but Ernest never 
got more than half-a-crown and seldom more than eight- 
een pence; his average would, I should think, be about 
one and nine pence, which was just too much for him to 
rank among the downright bad boys, but too little to put 
him among the good ones. 


CHAPTER XXXII 


I musT now return to Miss Alethea Pontifex, of whom I 
have said perhaps too little hitherto, considering how great 
her influence upon my hero’s destiny proved to be. 

On the death of her father, which happened when she 
was about thirty-two years old, she parted company with 
her sisters, between whom and herself there had been little 
sympathy, and came up to London. She was determined, 
so she said, to make the rest of her life as happy as she 
could, and she had clearer ideas about the best way of set- 
ting to work to do this than women, or indeed men, gen- 
erally have. 

Her fortune consisted, as I have said, of £5000, which 
had come to her by her mother’s marriage settlements, 
and £15,000 left her by her father, over both which sums 
she had now absolute control. These brought her in about 
£900 a year, and the money being invested in none but the 
soundest securities, she had no anxiety about her income. 
She meant to be rich, so she formed a scheme of expendi- 
ture which involved an annual outlay of about £500, and 
determined to put the rest by. “If I do this,” she said 
laughingly, “I shall probably just succeed in living com- 
fortably within my income.” In accordance with this 
scheme she took unfurnished apartments in a house in 


144 The Way of All Flesh 


Gower Street, of which the lower floors were let out as 
offices. John Pontifex tried to get her to take a house to 
herself, but Alethea told him to mind his own business so 
plainly that he had to beat a retreat. She had never liked 
him, and from that time dropped him almost entirely. 

Without going much into society she yet became ac- 
quainted with most of the men and women who had at- 
tained a position in the literary, artistic and scientific 
worlds, and it was singular how highly her opinion was 
valued in spite of her never having attempted in any way to 
distinguish herself. She could have written if she had 
chosen, but she enjoyed seeing others write and encourag- 
ing them better than taking a more active part herself. 
Perhaps literary people liked her all the better because she 
did not write. 

I, as she very well knew, had always been devoted to 
her, and she might have had a score of other admirers if 
she had liked, but she had discouraged them all, and railed 
at matrimony as women seldom do unless they have a 
comfortable income of their own. She by no means, 
however, railed at man as she railed at matrimony, and 
though living after a fashion which even the most cen- 
sorious could find nothing to complain of, as far as she 
properly could she defended those of her own sex whom 
the world condemned most severely. 

In religion she was, I should think, as nearly a free- 
thinker as anyone could be whose mind seldom turned upon 
the subject. She went to church, but disliked equally 
those who aired either religion or irreligion. I remember 
once hearing her press a late well-known philosopher to 
write a novel instead of pursuing his attacks upon reli- 
gion. The philosopher did not much like this, and di- 
lated upon the importance of showing people the folly of 
much that they pretended to believe. She smiled and said 
demurely, “Have they not Moses and the prophets? 
Let them hear them.’ But she would say a wicked thing 
quietly on her own account sometimes, and called my at- 


The Way of All Flesh 145 


tention once to a note in her prayer-book which gave an 
account of the walk to Emmaus with the two disciples, 
and how Christ had said to them, “‘O fools and slow of 
heart to believe aLt that the prophets have spoken’”— 
the “all”? being printed in small capitals. 

Though scarcely on terms with her brother John, she 
had kept up closer relations with Theobald and his fam- 
ily, and had paid a few days’ visit to Battersby once in 
every two years or so. Alethea had always tried to like 
Theobald and join forces with him as much as she could 
(for they two were the hares of the family, the rest being 
all hounds), but it was no use. I believe her chief reason 
for maintaining relations with her brother was that she 
might keep an eye on his children and give them a lift if 
they proved nice. 

When Miss Pontifex had come down to Battersby in 
old times the children had not been beaten, and their les- 
sons had been made lighter. She easily saw that they were 
overworked and unhappy, but she could hardly guess how 
all-reaching was the régime under which they lived. She 
knew she could not interfere effectually then, and wisely 
forebore to make too many enquiries. Her time, if ever 
it was to come, would be when the children were no longer 
living under the same roof as their parents. It ended in 
her making up her mind to have nothing to do with either 
Joey or Charlotte, but to see so much of Ermmest as should 
enable her to form an opinion about his disposition and 
abilities. 

He had now been a year and a half at Roughborough 
and was nearly fourteen years old, so that his character 
had begun to shape. His aunt had not seen him for some 
little time and, thinking that if she was to exploit him 
she could do so now perhaps better than at any other 
time, she resolved to go down to Roughborough on some 
pretext which should be good enough for Theobald, and 
to take stock of her nephew under circumstances in which 
she could get him for some few hours to herself. Accord- 


146 The Way of All Flesh 


ingly in August, 1849, when Ernest was just entering on 
his fourth half year a cab drove up to Dr. Skinner’s door 
with Miss Pontifex, who asked and obtained leave for 
Ernest to come and dine with her at the Swan Hotel. 
She had written to Ernest to say she was coming and he 
was of course on the lookout for her. He had not seen her 
for so long that he was rather shy at first, but her good na- 
ture soon set him at his ease. She was so strongly biassed 
in favour of anything young that her heart warmed to- 
wards him at once, though his appearance was less pre- 
possessing than she had hoped. She took him to a cake 
shop and gave him whatever he liked as soon as she had 
got him off the school premises; and Ernest felt at once 
that she contrasted favourably even with his aunts the 
Misses Allaby, who were so very sweet and good. The 
Misses Allaby were very poor; sixpence was to them what 
five shillings was to Alethea. What chance had they 
against one who, if she had a mind, could put by out of her 
income twice as much as they, poor women, could spend? 

The boy had plenty of prattle in him when he was not 
snubbed, and Alethea encouraged him to chatter about 
whatever came uppermost. He was always ready to trust 
anyone who was kind to him; it took many years to make 
him reasonably wary in this respect—if indeed, as I some- 
times doubt, he ever will be as wary as he ought to be— 
and in a short time he had quite dissociated his aunt from 
his papa and mamma and the rest, with whom his instinct 
told him he should be on his guard. Little did he know 
how great, as far as he was concerned, were the issues that 
depended upon his behaviour. If he had known, he would 
perhaps have played his part less successfully. 

His aunt drew from him more details of his home and 
school life than his papa and mamma would have approved 
of, but he had no idea that he was being pumped. She 
got out of him all about the happy Sunday evenings, and 
how he and Joey and Charlotte quarrelled sometimes, but 
she took no side and treated everything as though it were 


The Way of All Flesh 147 


a matter of course. Like all the boys, he could mimic Dr. 
Skinner, and when warmed with dinner, and two glasses 
of sherry which made him nearly tipsy, he favoured his 
aunt with samples of the Doctor’s manner and spoke of 
him familiarly as “Sam.” 

“Sam,” he said, “is an awful old humbug.” It was the 
sherry that brought out this piece of swagger, for whatever 
else he was Dr. Skinner was a reality to Master Ernest, 
before which, indeed, he sank into his boots in no time. 
Alethea smiled and said, “I must not say anything to that, 
must I?” Ernest said, “‘I suppose not,”’ and was checked. 
By-and-by he vented a number of small secondhand prig- 
gishnesses which he had caught up believing them to be 
the correct thing, and made it plain that even at that early 
age Ernest believed in Ernest with a belief which was 
amusing from its absurdity. His aunt judged him chari- 
tably, as she was sure to do; she knew very well where the 
priggishness came from, and seeing that the string of his 
tongue had been loosened sufficiently gave him no more 
sherry. 

It was after dinner, however, that he completed the 
conquest of his aunt. She then discovered that, like her- 
self, he was passionately fond of music, and that, too, of 
the highest class. He knew, and hummed or whistled to 
her all sorts of pieces out of the works of the great masters, 
which a boy of his age could hardly be expected to know, 
and it was evident that this was purely instinctive, inas- 
much as music received no kind of encouragement at 
Roughborough. ‘There was no boy in the school as fond of 
music as he was. He picked up his knowledge, he said, 
from the organist of St. Michael’s Church, who used to 
practise sometimes on a week-day afternoon. Ernest had 
heard the organ booming away as he was passing outside 
the church and had sneaked inside and up into the organ 
loft. In the course of time the organist became accus- 
tomed to him as a familiar visitant, and the pair became 
friends. 


bf 


148 The Way of All Flesh 


It was this which decided Alethea that the boy was 
worth taking pains with. ‘‘He likes the best music,” she 
thought, ‘‘and he hates Dr. Skinner. This is a very fair 
beginning.”” When she sent him away at night with a 
sovereign in his pocket (and he had only hoped to get five 
shillings) she felt as though she had had a good deal more 
than her money’s worth for her money. 


CHAPTER XXXIII 


Next day Miss Pontifex returned to town, with her 
thoughts full of her nephew and how she could best be 
of use to him. 

It appeared to her that to do him any real service she 
must devote herself almost entirely to him; she must in 
fact give up living in London, at any rate for a long time, 
and live at Roughborough where she could see him con- 
tinually. This was a serious undertaking; she had lived 
in London for the last twelve years, and naturally disliked 
the prospect of a small country town such as Roughbor- 
ough. Was it a prudent thing to attempt so much? Must 
not people take their chances in this world? Can anyone 
do much for anyone else unless by making a will in his 
favour and dying then and there? Should not each look 
after his own happiness, and will not the world be best 
carried on if everyone minds his own business and leaves 
other people to mind theirs? Life is not a donkey race 
in which everyone is to ride his neighbour’s donkey and 
the last is to win, and the psalmist long since formulated 
a common experience when he declared that no man may 
deliver his brother nor make agreement unto God for him, 
for it cost more to redeem their souls, so that he must let 
that alone for ever. 

All these excellent reasons for letting her nephew alone 
occurred to her, and many more, but against them there 
pleaded a woman’s love for children, and her desire to find 
someone among the younger branches of her own family to 


The Way of All Flesh 149 


whom she could become warmly attached, and whom she 
could attach warmly to herself. 

Over and above this she wanted someone to leave her 
money to; she was not going to leave it to people about 
whom she knew very little, merely because they happened 
to be sons and daughters of brothers and sisters whom she 
had never liked. She knew the power and value of money 
exceedingly well, and how many lovable people suffer and 
die yearly for the want of it; she was little likely to leave 
it without being satisfied that her legatees were square, 
lovable, and more or less hard up. She wanted those to 
have it who would be most likely to use it genially and 
sensibly, and whom it would thus be likely to make most 
happy; if she could find one such among her nephews and 
nieces, so much the better; it was worth taking a great 
deal of pains to see whether she could or could not; but 
if she failed, she must find an heir who was not related 
to her by blood. 

““Of course,” she had said to me, more than once, “I 
shall make a mess of it. I shall choose some nice-looking 
well-dressed screw, with gentlemanly manners which will 
take me in, and he will go and paint Academy pictures, 
or write for the 71mes, or do something just as horrid the 
moment the breath is out of my body.” 

As yet, however, she had made no will at all, and this 
was one of the few things that troubled her. I believe 
she would have left most of her money to me if I had 
not stopped her. My father left me abundantly well off, 
and my mode of life has been always simple, so that I have 
never known uneasiness about money; moreover I was 
especially anxious that there should be no occasion given 
for ill-natured talk; she knew well, therefore, that her 
leaving her money to me would be of all things the most 
likely to weaken the ties that existed between us, provided 
that I was aware of it, but I did not mind her talking about 
whom she should make her heir, so long as it was well 
understood that I was not to be the person. 


150 The Way of All Flesh 


Ernest had satished her as having enough in him to 
tempt her strongly to take him up, but it was not till after 
many days’ reflection that she gravitated towards actually 
doing so, with all the break in her daily ways that this 
would entail. At least, she said it took her some days, and 
certainly it appeared to do so, but from the moment she 
had begun to broach the subject, I had guessed how things 
were going to end. 

It was now arranged she should take a house at Roush 
borough, and go and live there for a couple of years. As 
a compromise, however, to meet some of my objections, it 
was also arranged that she should keep her rooms in Gower 
Street, and come to town for a week once in each month; 
of course, also, she would leave Roughborough for the 
greater part of the holidays. After two years, the thing 
was to come to an end, unless it proved a great success. 
She should by that time, at any rate, have made up her 
mind what the boy’s character was, and would then act as 
circumstances might determine. 

The pretext she put forward ostensibly was that her 
doctor said she ought to be a year or two in the country 
after so many years of London life, and had recommended 
Roughborough on account of the purity of its air, and its 
easy access to and from London—for by this time the rail- 
way had reached it. She was anxious not to give her 
brother and sister any right to complain, if on seeing more 
of her nephew she found she could not get on with him, 
and she was also anxious not to raise false hopes of any kind 
in the boy’s own mind. 

Having settled how everything was to be, she wrote to 
Theobald and said she meant to take a house in Rough- 
borough from the Michaelmas then approaching, and men- 
tioned, as though casually, that one of the attractions of 
the place would be that her nephew was at school there 
and she would hope to see more of him than she had done 
hitherto. 

Theobald and Christina knew how dearly Alethea loved 


The Way of All Flesh 151 


London, and thought it very odd that she should want to 
go and live at Roughborough, but they did not suspect 
that she was going there solely on her nephew’s account, 
much less that she had thought of making Ernest her heir. 
If they had guessed this, they would have been so jealous 
that I half believe they would have asked her to go and 
live somewhere else. Alethea, however, was two or three 
years younger than Theobald; she was still some years 
short of fifty, and might very well live to eighty-five or 
ninety; her money, therefore, was not worth taking much 
trouble about, and her brother and sister-in-law had dis- 
missed it, so to speak, from their minds with costs, as- 
suming, however, that if anything did happen to her while 
they were still alive, the money would, as a matter of 
course, come to them. 

The prospect of Alethea seeing much of Ernest was a 
serious matter. Christina smelt mischief from afar, as 
indeed she often did. Alethea was worldly—as worldly, 
that is to say, as a sister of Theobald’s could be. In her 
letter to Theobald she had said she knew how much of his 
and Christina’s thoughts were taken up with anxiety for 
the boy’s welfare. Alethea had thought this handsome 
enough, but Christina had wanted something better and 
stronger. ‘‘How can she know how much we think of our 
darling?”’ she had exclaimed, when Theobald showed her 
his sister’s letter. “‘I think, my dear, Alethea would under- 
stand these things better if she had children of her own.” 
The least that would have satisfied Christina was to have 
been told that there never yet had been any parents com- 
parable to Theobald and herself. She did not feel easy that 
an alliance of some kind would not grow up between aunt 
and nephew, and neither she nor Theobald wanted Ernest 
to have any allies. Joey and Charlotte were quite as many 
allies as were good for him. After all, however, if Alethea 
chose to go and live at Roughborough, they could not well 
stop her, and must make the best of it. 

In a few weeks’ time Alethea did choose to go and live 


152 The Way of All Flesh 


at Roughborough. A house was found with a field and a 
nice little garden which suited her very well. “‘At any rate, 
she said to herself, “‘I will have fresh eggs and flowers.”’ 
She even considered the question of keeping a cow, but in 
the end decided not to do so. She furnished her house 
throughout anew, taking nothing whatever from her estab- 
lishment in Gower Street, and by Michaelmas—for the 
house was empty when she took it—she was settled com- 
fortably, and had begun to make herself at home. 

One of Miss Pontifex’s first moves was to ask a dozen 
of the smartest and most gentlemanly boys to breakfast 
with her. From her seat in church she could see the faces 
of the upper-form boys, and soon made up her mind which 
of them it would be best to cultivate. Miss Pontifex, 
sitting opposite the boys in church, and reckoning them up 
with her keen eyes from under her veil by all a woman’s 
criteria, came to a truer conclusion about the greater num- 
ber of those she scrutinized than even Dr. Skinner had 
done. She fell in love with one boy from seeing him put 
on his gloves. 

Miss Pontifex, as I have said, got hold of some of these 
youngsters through Ernest, and fed them well. No boy can 
resist being fed well by a good-natured and still handsome 
woman. Boys are very like nice dogs in this respect— 
give them a bone and they will like you at once. Alethea 
employed every other little artifice which she thought 
likely to win their allegiance to herself, and through this 
their countenance for her nephew. She found the foot- 
ball club in a slight money difficulty and at once gave half 
a sovereign towards its removal. The boys had no chance 
against her, she shot them down one after another as easily 
as though they had been roosting pheasants. Nor did she 
escape scathless herself, for, as she wrote to me, she quite 
lost her heart to half a dozen of them. “‘How much nicer 
they are,” she said, “‘and how much more they know than 
those who profess to teach them!” 

I believe it has been lately maintained that it is the 


The Way of All Flesh 153 


young and fair who are the truly old and truly experi- 
enced, inasmuch as it is they who alone have a living 
memory to guide them; “‘the whole charm,” it has been 
said, ‘“‘of youth lies in its advantage over age in respect 
of experience, and when this has for some reason failed 
or been misapplied, the charm is broken. When we say 
that we are getting old, we should say rather that we are 
getting new or young, and are suffering from inexperience; 
trying to do things which we have never done before, and 
failing worse and worse, till in the end we are landed in 
the utter impotence of death.” 

Miss Pontifex died many a long year before the above 
passage was written, but she had arrived independently 
at much the same conclusion. 

She first, therefore, squared the boys. Dr. Skinner was 
even more easily dealt with. He and Mrs. Skinner called, 
as a matter of course, as soon as Miss Pontifex was set- 
tled. She fooled him to the top of his bent, and obtained 
the promise of a MS. copy of one of his minor poems (for 
Dr. Skinner had the reputation of being quite one of our 
most facile and elegant minor poets) on the occasion of his 
first visit. The other masters and masters’ wives were not 
forgotten. Alethea laid herself out to please, as indeed 
she did wherever she went, and if any woman lays herself 
out to do this, she generally succeeds. 


CHAPTER XXXIV 


Miss PontTIFEX soon found out that Ernest did not like 
games, but she saw also that he could hardly be expected to 
like them. He was perfectly well shaped but unusually 
devoid of physical strength. He got a fair share of this 
in after life, but it came much later with him than with 
other boys, and at the time of which I am writing he was 
a mere little skeleton. He wanted something to develop 
his arms and chest without knocking him about as much 
as the school games did. To supply this want by,some 


154 The Way of All Flesh 


means which should add also to his pleasure was Alethea’s 
first anxiety. Rowing would have answered every purpose, 
but unfortunately there was no river at Roughborough. 

Whatever it was to be, it must be something which he 
should like as much as other boys liked cricket or foot- 
ball, and he must think the wish for it to have come orig- 
inally from himself; it was not very easy to find anything 
that would do, but ere long it occurred to her that she 
might enlist his love of music on her side, and asked him 
one day when he was spending a half-holiday at her house 
whether he would like her to buy an organ for him to play 
on. Of course, the boy said yes; then she told him about 
her grandfather and the organs he had built. It had never 
entered into his head that he could make one, but when 
he gathered from what his aunt had said that this was not 
out of the question, he rose as eagerly to the bait as she 
could have desired, and wanted to begin learning to saw 
and plane so that he might make the wooden pipes at 
once. 

Miss Pontifex did not see how she could have hit upon 
anything more suitable, and she liked the idea that he 
would incidentally get a knowledge of carpentering, for 
she was impressed, perhaps foolishly, with the wisdom of 
the German custom which gives every boy a handicraft 
of some sort. 

Writing to me on this matter, she said, “‘ Professions are 
all very well for those who have connection and interest 
as well as capital, but otherwise they ate white elephants. 
How many men do not you and I know who have talent, 
assiduity, excellent good sense, straightforwardness, every 
quality in fact which should command success, and who 
yet go on from year to year waiting and hoping against 
hope for the work which never comes? How, indeed, is 
it likely to come unless to those who either are born with 
interest, or who marry in order to get it? Ernest’s father 
and mother have no interest, and if they had they would 
not use it. I suppose they will make him a clergyman, or 


The Way of All Flesh 155 


try to do so—perhaps it 1s the best thing to do with him, for 
he could buy a living with the money his grandfather left 
him, but there is no knowing what the boy will think of it 
when the time comes, and for aught we know he may in- 
sist on going to the backwoods of America, as so many 
other young men are doing now.” ... But, anyway, 
he would like making an organ, and this could do him no 
harm, so the sooner he began the better. 

Alethea thought it would save trouble in the end if she 
told her brother and sister-in-law of this scheme. “I do 
not suppose,” she wrote, “‘that Dr. Skinner will approve 
very cordially of my attempt to introduce organ-building 
into the curriculum of Roughborough, but I will see what 
I can do with him, for I have set my heart on owning an 
organ built by Ernest’s own hands, which he may play on 
as much as he likes while it remains in my house and which 
I will lend him permanently as soon as he gets one of 
his own, but which is to be my property for the present, 
inasmuch as I mean to pay for it.”’ This was put in to 
make it plain to Theobald and Christina that they should 
not be out of pocket in the matter. 

If Alethea had been as poor as the Misses Allaby, the 
reader may guess what Ernest’s papa and mamma would 
have said to this proposal; but then, if she had been as poor 
as they, she would never have made it. They did not like 
Ernest’s getting more and more into his aunt’s good books; 
still it was perhaps better that he should do so than that 
she should be driven back upon the John Pontifexes. 
‘The only thing, said Theobald, which made him hesitate, 
was that the boy might be thrown with low associates later 
on if he were to be encouraged in his taste for music—a 
taste which Theobald had always disliked. He had ob- 
served with regret that Ernest had ere now shown rather a 
hankering after low company, and he might make acquaint- 
ance with those who would corrupt his innocence. Chris- 
tina shuddered at this, but when they had aired their scru- 
ples sufficiently they felt (and when people begin to 


156 The Way of All Flesh 


“*feel,” they are invariably going to take what they be- 
lieve to be the more worldly course) that to oppose Ale- 
thea’s proposal would be injuring their son’s prospects 
more than was right, so they consented, but not too 
graciously. 

After a time, however, Christina got used to the idea, 
and then considerations occurred to her which made her 
throw herself into it with characteristic ardour. If Miss 
Pontifex had been a railway stock she might have been 
said to have been buoyant in the Battersby market for 
some few days; buoyant for long together she could never 
be, still for a time there really was an upward movement. 
Christina’s mind wandered to the organ itself; she seemed 
to have made it with her own hands; there would be no 
other in England to compare with it for combined sweet- 
ness and power. She already heard the famous Dr. Wal- 
misley of Cambridge mistaking it fora Father Smith. It 
would come, no doubt, in reality to Battersby Church, 
which wanted an organ, for it must be all nonsense about 
Alethea’s wishing to keep it, and Ernest would not have a 
house of his own for ever so many years, and they could 
never have it at the Rectory. Oh, no! Battersby Church 
was the only proper place for it. 

Of course, they would have a grand opening, and the 
Bishop would come down, and perhaps young Figgins 
might be on a visit to them—she must ask Ernest if young 
Figgins had yet left Roughborough—he might even per- 
suade his grandfather, Lord Lonsford, to be present. 
Lord Lonsford and the Bishop and everyone else would 
then compliment her, and Dr. Wesley or Dr. Walmisley, 
who should preside (it did not much matter which), would 
say to her, ‘““My dear Mrs. Pontifex, I never yet played 
upon so remarkable an instrument.”’ Then she would give 
him one of her very sweetest smiles and say she feared he 
was flattering her, on which he would rejoin with some 
pleasant little trifle about remarkable men (the remark- 
able man being for the moment Ernest) having invariably 


The Way of All Flesh 157 


had remarkable women for their mothers—and so on and 
soon. The advantage of doing one’s praising for oneself 
is that one can lay it on so thick and exactly in the nght 
places. 

Theobald wrote Ernest a short and surly letter d propos 
of his aunt’s intentions in this matter. 

“T will not commit myself,” he said, ‘‘to an opinion 
whether anything will come of it; this will depend entirely 
upon your own exertions; you have had singular advan- 
tages hitherto, and your kind aunt is showing every desire 
to befriend you, but you must give greater proof of stability 
and steadiness of character than you have given yet if this 
organ matter is not to prove in the end to be only one 
disappointment the more. 

“I must insist on two things: firstly, that this new iron in 
the fire does not distract your attention from your Latin 
and Greek’’—(“‘They aren’t mine,” thought Ernest, “and 
never have been’’)—“‘and secondly, that you bring no 
smell of glue or shavings into the house here, if you make 
any part of the organ during your holidays.” 

Ernest still was too young to know how unpleasant a 
letter he was receiving. He believed the innuendoes con- 
tained in it to be perfectly just. He knew he was sadly 
deficient in perseverance. He liked some things for a little 
while, and then found he did not like them any more—and 
this was as bad as anything well could be. His father’s 
letter gave him one of his many fits of melancholy over his 
own worthlessness, but the thought of the organ consoled 
him, and he felt sure that here at any rate was something 
to which he could apply himself steadily without growing 
tired of it. 

It was settled that the organ was not to be begun before 
the Christmas holidays were over, and that till then Ernest 
should do a little plain carpentering, so as to get to know 
how to use his tools. Miss Pontifex had a carpenter’ S 
bench set up in an outhouse upon her own premises, and 
made terms with the most respectable carpenter in Rough- 


158 The Way of All Flesh 


borough, by which one of his men was to come for a couple 
of hours twice a week and set Ernest on the right way; 
then she discovered she wanted this or that simple piece of 
work done, and gave the boy a commission to do it, paying 
him handsomely as well as finding him in tools and ma- 
terials. She never gave him a syllable of good advice, or 
talked to him about everything’s depending upon his own 
exertions, but she kissed him often, and would come into 
the workshop and act the part of one who took an interest 
in what was being done so cleverly as ere long to become 
really interested. 

What boy would not take kindly to almost anything with 
such assistance? All boys like making things; the exercise 
of sawing, planing and hammering, proved exactly what 
his aunt had wanted to find—something that should exer- 
cise, but not too much, and at the same time amuse him; 
when Ernest’s sallow face was flushed with his work, and 
his eyes were sparkling with pleasure, he looked quite a 
different boy from the one his aunt had taken in hand 
only a few months earlier. His inner self never told him 
that this was humbug, as it did about Latin and Greek. 
Making tools and drawers was worth living for, and after 
Christmas there loomed the organ, which was scarcely ever 
absent from his mind. 

His aunt let him invite his friends, encouraging him to 
bring those whom her quick sense told her were the most 
desirable. She smartened him up also in his personal ap- 
pearance, always without preaching to him. Indeed she 
worked wonders during the short time that was allowed 
her, and if her life had been spared I cannot think that my 
hero would have come under the shadow of that cloud 
which cast so heavy a gloom over his younger manhood; 
but unfortunately for him his gleam of sunshine was too 
hot and too brilliant to last, and he had many a storm yet 
to weather, before he became fairly happy. For the 
present, however, he was supremely so, and his aunt was 
happy and grateful for his happiness, the improvement she 


The Way of All Flesh 159 


saw in him, and his unrepressed affection for herself. She 
became fonder of him from day to day in spite of his many 
faults and almost incredible foolishnesses. It was perhaps 
on account of these very things that she saw how much he 
had need of her; but at any rate, from whatever cause, she 
became strengthened in her determination to be to him in 
the place of parents, and to find in him a son rather than a 
nephew. But still she made no will. 


CHAPTER XXXV 


ALL went well for the first part of the following half year. 
Miss Pontifex spent the greater part of her holidays in 
London, and I also saw her at Roughborough, where I 
spent a few days, staying at the “Swan.” I heard all 
about my godson in whom, however, I took less interest 
than I said I did. I took more interest in the stage at that 
time than in anything else, and as for Ernest, I found him 
a nuisance for engrossing so much of his aunt’s attention, 
and taking her so much from London. ‘The organ was 
begun, and made fair progress during the first two months 
of the half year. Ernest was happier than he had ever 
been before, and was struggling upwards. The best boys 
took more notice of him for his aunt’s sake, and he con- 
sorted less with those who led him into mischief. 

But much as Miss Pontifex had done, she could not all 
at once undo the effect of such surroundings as the boy had 
had at Battersby. Much as he feared and disliked his 
father (though he still knew not how much this was), he 
had caught much from him; if Theobald had been kinder 
Ernest would have modelled himself upon him entirely, and 
ere long would probably have become as thorough a little 
prig as could have easily been found. 

Fortunately his temper had come to him from his 
mother, who, when not frightened, and when there was 
nothing on the horizon which might cross the slightest 
whim of her husband, was an amiable, good-natured 


160 The Way of All Flesh 


woman. If it was not such an awful thing to say of any- 
one, I should say that she meant well. 

Ernest had also inherited his mother’s love of building 
castles in the air, and—so I suppose it must be called— 
her vanity. He was very fond of showing off, and, pro- 
vided he could attract attention, cared little from whom it 
came, nor what it was for. He caught up, parrot-like, 
whatever jargon he heard from his elders, which he thought 
was the correct thing, and aired it in season and out of 
season, as though it were his own. 

Miss Pontifex was old enough and wise enough to know 
that this is the way in which even the greatest men as a 
general rule begin to develop, and was more pleased with 
his receptiveness and reproductiveness than alarmed at the 
things he caught and reproduced. 

She saw that he was much attached to herself, and 
trusted to this rather than to anything else. She saw also 
that his conceit was not very profound, and that his fits 
of self-abasement were as extreme as his exaltation had 
been. His impulsiveness and sanguine trustfulness in any- 
one who smiled pleasantly at him, or indeed was not abso- 
lutely unkind to him, made her more anxious about him 
than any other point in his character; she saw clearly that 
he would have to find himself rudely undeceived many a 
time and oft, before he would learn to distinguish friend 
from foe within reasonable time. It was her perception 
of this which led her to take the action which she was so 
soon called upon to take. 

Her health was for the most part excellent, and she had 
never had a serious illness in her life. One morning, how- 
ever, soon after Easter, 1850, she awoke feeling seriously 
unwell. For some little time there had been a talk of 
fever in the neighbourhood, but in those days the precau- 
tions that ought to be taken against the spread of infec- 
tion were not so well understood as now, and nobody did 
anything. In a day or two it became plain that Miss 
Pontifex had got an attack of typhoid fever and was dan- 


The Way of All Flesh 161 


gerously ill. On this she sent off a messenger to town, 
and desired him not to return without her lawyer and 
myself. 

We arrived on the afternoon of the day on which we 
had been summoned, and found her still free from de- 
lirium: indeed, the cheery way in which she received us 
made it difficult to think that she could be in danger. She 
at once explained her wishes, which had reference, as I ex- 
pected, to her nephew, and repeated the substance of what 
I have already referred to as her main source of uneasiness 
concerning him. Then she begged me by our long and 
close intimacy, by the suddenness of the danger that had 
fallen on her and her powerlessness to avert it, to undertake 
what she said she well knew, if she died, would be an un- 
pleasant and invidious trust. 

She wanted to leave the bulk of her money ostensibly to 
me, but in reality to her nephew, so that I should hold it 
in trust for him till he was twenty-eight years old, but 
neither he nor anyone else, except her lawyer and myself, 
was to know anything about it. She would leave £5000 
in other legacies, and £15,000 to Ernest—which by the 
time he was twenty-eight would have accumulated to, say, 
£30,000. ‘Sell out the debentures,”’ she said, ‘“‘where the 
money now is—and put it into Midland Ordinary. 

“Let him make his mistakes,” she said, “upon the 
money his grandfather left him. Iam no prophet, but even 
I can see that it will take that boy many years to see things 
as his neighbours see them. He will get no help from his 
father and mother, who would never forgive him for his 
good luck if I left him the money outright; I daresay I 
am wrong, but I think he will have to lose the greater part 
or all of what he has, before he will know how to keep 
what he will get from me.” 

Supposing he went bankrupt before he was twenty-eight 
years old, the money was to be mine absolutely, but she 
could trust me, she said, to hand it over to Ernest in due 
time. 


162 The Way of All Flesh 


**Tf,” she continued, ‘“‘I am mistaken, the worst that can 
happen is that he will come into a larger sum at twenty- 
eight instead of a smaller sum at, say, twenty-three, for I 
would never trust him with it earlier, and if he knows 
nothing about it he will not be unhappy for the want of 
it.’ 

She begged me to take £2000 in return for the trouble I 
should have in taking charge of the boy’s estate, and as 
a sign of the testatrix’s hope that I would now and again 
look after him while he was still young. The remaining 
£3000 I was to pay in legacies and annuities to friends 
and servants. 

In vain both her lawyer and myself remonstrated with 
her on the unusual and hazardous nature of this arrange- 
ment. We told her that sensible people will not take a 
‘more sanguine view concerning human nature than the 
Courts of Chancery do. We said, in fact, everything 
that anyone else would say. She admitted everything, but 
urged that her time was short, that nothing would induce 
her to leave her money to her nephew in the usual way. 
“It is an unusually foolish will,” she said, “‘but he is an 
unusually foolish boy;”’ and she smiled quite merrily at 
her little sally. Like all the rest of her family, she was 
very stubborn when her mind was made up. So the thing 
was done as she wished it. 

No provision was made for either my death or Ernest’s— 
Miss Pontifex had settled it that we were neither of us 
going to die, and was too ill to go into details; she was so 
anxious, moreover, to sign her will while still able to do 
so that we had practically no alternative but to do as she 
told us. If she recovered we could see things put on a 
more satisfactory footing, and further discussion would 
evidently impair her chances of recovery; it seemed then 
only too likely that it was a case of this will or no will 
at all. 

When the will was signed I wrote a letter in duplicate, 
saying that I held all Miss Pontifex had left me in trust 


The Way of All Flesh 163 


for Ernest except as regards £5000, but that he was not 
to come into the bequest, and was to know nothing what- 
ever about it directly or indirectly, till he was twenty-eight 
years old, and if he was bankrupt before he came into it 
the money was to be mine absolutely. At the foot of each 
letter Miss Pontifex wrote, “The above was my under- 
standing when I made my will,” and then signed her name. 
The solicitor and his clerk witnessed; I kept one copy 
myself and handed the other to Miss Pontifex’s solicitor. 

When all this had been done she became more easy in 
her mind. She talked principally about her nephew. 
“Don’t scold him,” she said, “‘if he is volatile, and con- 
tinually takes things up only to throw them down again. 
How can he find out his strength or weakness otherwise? 
A man’s profession,” she said, and here she gave one of 
her wicked little laughs, “‘is not like his wife, which he 
must take once for all, for better for worse, without proof 
beforehand. Let him go here and there, and learn his 
truest liking by finding out what, after all, he catches him- 
self turning to most habitually—then let him stick to this; 
but I daresay Ernest will be forty or five and forty before 
he settles down. Then all his previous infidelities will 
work together to him for good if he is the boy I hope he is. 

“Above all,”’she continued, “‘do not let him work up to 
his full strength, except once or twice in his lifetime; 
nothing is well done nor worth doing unless, take it all 
round, it has come pretty easily. Theobald and Christina 
would give him a pinch of salt and tell him to put it on the 
tails of the seven deadly virtues;’’—here she laughed again 
in her old manner at once so mocking and so sweet—‘‘I 
think if he likes pancakes he had perhaps better eat them 
on Shrove Tuesday, but this is enough.”’ These were the 
last coherent words she spoke. From that time she grew 
continually worse, and was never free from delirium till 
her death—which took place less than a fortnight after- 
wards, to the inexpressible grief of those who knew and 
loved her. 


164 The Way of All Flesh 


CHAPTER XXXVI 


Letrers had been written to Miss Pontifex’s brothers and 
sisters, and one and all came post-haste to Roughborough. 
Before they arrived the poor lady was already delirious, 
and for the sake of her own peace at the last I am half 
glad she never recovered consciousness. 

I had known these people all their lives, as none can 
know each other but those who have played together as 
children; I knew how they had all of them—perhaps Theo- 
bald least, but all of them more or less—made her life a 
burden to her until the death of her father had made her 
her own mistress, and I was displeased at their coming one 
after the other to Roughborough, and inquiring whether 
their sister had recovered consciousness sufhiciently to be 
able to see them. It was known that she had sent for me 
on being taken ill, and that I remained at Roughborough, 
and I own I was angered by the mingled air of suspicion, 
defiance and inquisitiveness, with which they regarded me. 
They would all, except Theobald, I believe, have cut me 
downright if they had not believed me to know something 
they wanted to know themselves, and might have some 
chance of learning from me—for it was plain I had been 
in some way concerned with the making of their sister’s 
will. None of them suspected what the ostensible nature 
of this would be, but I think they feared Miss Pontifex 
was about to leave money for public uses. John said to 
me in his blandest manner that he fancied he remembered 
to have heard his sister say that she thought of leaving 
money to found a college for the relief of dramatic authors 
in distress; to this I made no rejoinder, and | have no doubt 
his suspicions. were deepened. 

When the end came, I got Miss Pontifex’s solicitor to 
write and tell her brothers and sisters how she had left her 
money: they were not unnaturally furious, and went each 
to his or her separate home without attending the funeral, 
and without paying any attention to myself. This was 


The Way of All Flesh 165 


perhaps the kindest thing they could have done by me, for 
their behaviour made me so angry that I became almost 
reconciled to Alethea’s will out of pleasure at the anger it 
had aroused. But for this I should have felt the will 
keenly, as having been placed by it in the position which 
of all others [ had been most anxious to avoid, and as hav- 
ing saddled me with a very heavy responsibility. Still 
it was impossible for me to escape, and I could only let 
things take their course. 

Miss Pontifex had expressed a wish to be buried at 
Paleham; in the course of the next few days I therefore 
took the body thither. I had not been to Paleham since 
the death of my father some six years earlier. I had often 
wished to go there, but had shrunk from doing so, though 
my sister had been two or three times. I could not bear 
to see the house which had been my home for so many 
years of my life in the hands of strangers; to ring cere- 
moniously at a bell which I had never yet pulled except 
as a boy in jest; to feel that I had nothing to do with a 
garden in which I[ had in childhood gathered so many a 
nosegay, and which had seemed my own for many years 
after | had reached man’s estate; to see the rooms bereft 
of every familiar feature, and made so unfamiliar in spite 
of their familiarity. Had there been any sufficient reason, 
I should have taken these things as a matter of course, 
and should no doubt have found them much worse in 
anticipation than in reality, but as there had been no 
special reason why I should go to Paleham I had hitherto 
avoided doing so. Now, however, my going was a neces- 
sity, and I confess I never felt more subdued than I did 
on arriving there with the dead playmate of my childhood. 

I found the village more changed than I had expected. 
The railway had come there, and a brand new yellow brick 
station was on the site of old Mr. and Mrs. Pontifex’s 
cottage. Nothing but the carpenter’s shop was now stand- 
ing. I saw many faces I knew, but even in six years they 
seemed to have grown wonderfully older. Some of the 


166 The Way of Ali Flesh 


very old were dead, and the old were getting very old in 
their stead. I felt like the changeling in the fairy story 
who came back after a seven years’ sleep. Everyone 
seemed glad to see me, though I had never given them 
particular cause to be so, and everyone who remembered 
old Mr. and Mrs Pontifex spoke warmly of them and were 
pleased at their granddaughter’s wishing to be laid near 
them. Entering the churchyard and standing in the twi- 
light of a gusty cloudy evening on the spot close beside 
old Mrs. Pontifex’s grave which I had chosen for Alethea’s, 
I thought of the many times that she, who would lie there 
henceforth, and I, who must surely lie one day in some 
such another place, though when and where I knew not, 
had romped over this very spot as childish lovers together. 

Next morning I followed her to the grave, and in due 
course set up a plain upright slab to her memory as like 
as might be to those over the graves of her grandmother 
and grandfather. I gave the dates and places of her birth 
and death, but added nothing except that this stone was 
set up by one who had known and loved her. Knowing 
how fond she had been of music I had been half inclined 
at one time to inscribe a few bars of music, if I could find 
any which seemed suitable to her character, but I knew 
how much she would have disliked anything singular in 
connection with her tombstone, and did not do it. 

Before, however, I had come to this conclusion, I had 
thought that Ernest might be able to help me to the right 
thing, and had written to him upon the subject. The 
following is the answer I received— 


“Dear Goppapa,—lI send you the best bit I can think 
of; it is the subject of the last of Handel’s six grand fugues 
and goes thus:— 





The Way of All Flesh 167 


It would do better for a man, especially for an old man 
who was very sorry for things, than for a woman, but I 
cannot think of anything better; if you do not like it for 
Aunt Alethea I shall keep it for myself,—Your affection- 
ate Godson, ERNEST PONTIFEX.” 


Was this the little lad who could get sweeties for two- 
pence but not for two-pence-halfpenny? Dear, dear me, 
I thought to myself, how these babes and sucklings do 
give us the go-by surely. Choosing his own epitaph at 
fifteen as for a man who “had been very sorry for things,” 
and such a strain as that—why it might have done for 
Leonardo da Vinci himself. Then I set the boy down as a 
conceited young jackanapes, which no doubt he was,— 
but so are a great many other young people of Ernest’s 
age. 


CHAPTER XXXVII 


Ir Theobald and Christina had not been too well pleased 
when Miss Pontifex first took Ernest in hand, they were 
still less so when the connection between the two was in- 
terrupted so prematurely. They said they had made sure 
from what their sister had said that she was going to make 
Ernest her heir. I do not think she had given them so 
much as a hint to this effect. Theobald indeed gave 
Ernest to understand that she had done so in a letter which 
will be given shortly, but if Theobald wanted to make him- 
self disagreeable, a trifle light as air would forthwith assume 
in his imagination whatever form was most convenient 
to him. I do not think they had even made up their minds 
what Alethea was to do with her money before they knew 
of her being at the point of death, and as I[ have said 
already, if they had thought it likely that Ernest would be 
made heir over their own heads without their having at 
any rate a life interest in the bequest, they would have 
soon thrown obstacles in the way of further intimacy be- 
tween aunt and nephew. 


168 The Way of All Flesh 


This, however, did not bar their right to feeling aggrieved. 
now that neither they nor Ernest had taken anything at 
all, and they could profess disappointment on their boy’s 
behalf which they would have been too proud to admit 
upon their own. In fact, it was only amiable of them to 
be disappointed under these circumstances. 

Christina said that the will was simply fraudulent, and 
was convinced that it could be upset if she and Theobald 
went the right way to work. Theobald, she said, should 
go before the Lord Chancellor, not in full court but in 
chambers, where he could explain the whole matter; or, 
perhaps it would be even better if she were to go herself— 
and I dare not trust myself to describe the reverie to which 
this last idea gave rise. I believe in the end Theobald 
died, and the Lord Chancellor (who had become a widower 
a few weeks earlier) made her an offer, which, however, 
she firmly but not ungratefully declined; she should ever, 
she said, continue to think of him as a friend—at this 
point the cook came in, saying the butcher had called, and 
what would she please to order. 

I think Theobald must have had an idea that there was 
something behind the bequest to me, but he said nothing 
about it to Christina. He was angry and felt wronged, be- 
cause he could not get at Alethea to give her a piece of his 
mind any more than he had been able to get at his father. 
“It is so mean of people,” he exclaimed to himself, “‘to in- 
flict an injury of this sort, and then shirk facing those 
whom they have injured; let us hope that, at any rate, 
they and I may meet in Heaven.” But of this he was 
doubtful, for when people had done so great a wrong as 
this, it was hardly to be supposed that they would go to 
Heaven at all—and as for his meeting them in another 
place, the idea never so much as entered his mind. 

One so angry and, of late, so little used to contradiction 
might be trusted, however, to avenge himself upon some- 
one, and Theobald had long since developed the organ, by 
means of which he might vent spleen with least risk and 


The Way of All Flesh 169 


greatest satisfaction to himself. This organ, it may be 
guessed, was nothing else than Ernest; to Ernest therefore 
he proceeded to unburden himself, not personally, but by 
letter. 

“You ought to know,” he wrote, “that your Aunt Ale- 
thea had given your mother and me to understand that it 
was her wish to make you her heir—in the event, of course, 
of your conducting yourself in such a manner as to give 
her confidence in you; as a matter of fact, however, she has 
left you nothing, and the whole of her property has gone to 
your godfather, Mr. Overton. Your mother and I are will- 
ing to hope that if she had lived longer you would yet have 
succeeded in winning her good opinion, but it is too late 
to think of this now. 

“The carpentering and organ-building must at once be 
discontinued. I never believed in the project, and have 
seen no reason to alter my original opinion. I am not sorry 
for your own sake, that it is to be at an end, nor, I am sure, 
will you regret it yourself in after years. 

“*A few words more as regards your own prospects. You 
have, as I believe you know, a small inheritance, which is 
yours legally under your grandfather’s will. This bequest 
was made inadvertently, and, | believe, entirely through 
a misunderstanding on the lawyer’s part. The bequest 
was probably intended not to take effect till after the 
death of your mother and myself; nevertheless, as the will 
is actually worded, it will now be at your command if you 
live to be twenty-one years old. From this, however, large 
deductions must be made. There will be legacy duty, and 
I do not know whether I am not entitled to deduct the 
expenses of your education and maintenance from birth to 
your coming of age; I shall not in all likelihood insist on 
this right to the full, if you conduct yourself properly, but a 
considerable sum should certainly be deducted; there will 
therefore remain very little—say £1000 or £2000 at the 
outside, as what will be actually yours—but the strictest 
account shall be rendered you in due time. 


170 The Way of All Flesh 


“This, let me warn you most seriously, is all that you 
must expect from me” (even Ernest saw that it was not 
from Theobald at all), “at any rate till after my death, 
which for aught any of us know may be yet many years 
distant. It is not a large sum, but it is sufficient if supple- 
mented by steadiness and earnestness of purpose. Your 
mother and I gave you the name Ernest, hoping that it 
would remind you continually of ——” but I really cannot 
copy more of this effusion. It was all the same old will- 
shaking game and came practically to this, that Ernest 
was no good, and that if he went on as he was going on 
now, he would probably have to go about the streets beg- 
ging without any shoes or stockings soon after he had left 
school, or at any rate, college; and that he, Theobald, and 
Christina were almost too good for this world altogether. 

After he had written this Theobald felt quite good-na- 
tured, and sent to the Mrs. Thompson of the moment even 
more soup and wine than her usual not illiberal allowance. 

Ernest was deeply, passionately upset by his father’s let- 
ter; to think that even his dear aunt, the one person of his 
relations whom he really loved, should have turned against 
him and thought badly of him after all. This was the un- 
kindest cut of all. In the hurry of her illness Miss Ponti- 
fex, while thinking only of his welfare, had omitted to make 
such small present mention of him as would have made his 
father’s innuendoes stingless; and her illness being infec- 
tious, she had not seen him after its nature was known. | 
myself did not know of Theobald’s letter, nor think enough 
about my godson to guess what might easily be his state. 
It was not till many years afterwards that I found Theo- 
bald’s letter in the pocket of an old portfolio which Ernest 
had used at school, and in which other old letters and 
school documents were collected which I have used in this 
book. He had forgotten that he had it, but told me when 
he saw it that he remembered it as the first thing that made 
him begin to rise against his father in a rebellion which he 
recognised as righteous, though he dared not openly avow 





The Way of All Flesh 171 


it. Not the least serious thing was that it would, he feared, 
be his duty to give up the legacy his grandfather had left 
him; for if it was his only through a mistake, how could he 
keep it? 

During the rest of the half year Ernest was listless and 
unhappy. He was very fond of some of his schoolfellows, 
but afraid of those whom he believed to be better than him- 
self, and prone to idealise everyone into being his superior 
except those who were obviously a good deal beneath him. 
He held himself much too cheap, and because he was with- 
out that physical strength and vigour which he so much 
coveted, and also because he knew he shirked his lessons, 
he believed that he was without anything which could de- 
serve the name of a good quality; he was naturally bad, and 
one of those for whom there was no place for repentance, 
though he sought it even with tears. So he shrank out of 
sight of those whom in his boyish way he idolised, never for 
a moment suspecting that he might have capacities to the 
full as high as theirs though of a different kind, and fell in 
more with those who were reputed of the baser sort, with 
whom he could at any rate be upon equal terms. Before 
the end of the half year he had dropped from the estate to 
which he had been raised during his aunt’s stay at Rough- 
borough, and his old dejection, varied, however, with 
bursts of conceit rivalling those of his mother, resumed its 
sway over him. “Pontifex,” said Dr. Skinner, who had 
fallen upon him in hall one day like a moral landslip, before 
he had time to escape, ““do you never laugh? Do you al- 
ways look so preternaturally grave?”? The doctor had not 
meant to be unkind, but the boy turned crimson, and 
escaped. 

There was one place only where he was happy, and that 
was in the old church of St. Michael, when his friend the 
organist was practising. About this time cheap editions 
of the great oratorios began to appear, and Ernest got them 
all as soon as they were published; he would sometimes 
sell a school-book to a second-hand dealer, and buy a num- 


riz The Way of All Flesh 


ber or two of the ‘‘ Messiah,” or the “‘Creation,” or “‘Eli- 
jah,” with the proceeds. This was simply cheating his 
papa and mamma, but Ernest was falling low again—or 
thought he was—and he wanted the music much, and the 
Sallust, or whatever it was, little. Sometimes the organist 
would go home, leaving his keys with Ernest, so that he 
could play by himself and lock up the organ and the church 
in time to get back for calling over. At other times, while 
his friend was playing, he would wander round the church, 
looking at the monuments and the old stained glass win- 
dows, enchanted as regards both ears and eyes, at once. 
Once the old rector got hold of him as he was watching a 
new window being put in, which the rector had bought in 
Germany—the work, it was supposed, of Albert Diirer. He 
questioned Ernest, and finding that he was fond of music, 
he said in his old trembling voice (for he was over eighty), 
“Then you should have known Dr. Burney who wrote the 
history of music. I knew him exceedingly well when I was 
a young man.” ‘That made Ernest’s heart beat, for he 
knew that Dr. Burney, when a boy at school at Chester, 
used to break bounds that he might watch Handel smoking 
his pipe in the Exchange coffee house—and now he was in 
the presence of one who, if he had not seen Handel himself, 
had at least seen those who had seen him. 

These were oases in his desert, but, as a general rule, 
the boy looked thin and pale, and as though he had a secret 
which depressed him, which no doubt he had, but for which 
I cannot blame him. He rose, in spite of himself, higher 
in the school, but fell ever into deeper and deeper disgrace 
with the masters, and did not gain in the opinion of those 
boys about whom he was persuaded that they could as- 
suredly never know what it was to have a secret weighing 
upon their minds. This was what Ernest felt so keenly; he 
did not much care about the boys who liked him, and 
idolised some who kept him as far as possible at a distance, 
but this is pretty much the case with all boys every- 
where. 


The Way of All Flesh Wis 


At last things reached a crisis, below which they could 
not very well go, for at the end of the half year but one 
after his aunt’s death, Ernest brought back a document in 
his portmanteau, which Theobald stigmatised as “in- 
famous and outrageous.”’ I need hardly say I am alluding 
to his school bill. 

This document was always a source of anxiety to Er- 
nest, for it was gone into with scrupulous care, and he 
was a good deal cross-examined about it. He would 
sometimes “‘write in’ for articles necessary for his educa- 
tion, such as a portfolio, or a dictionary, and sell the same, 
as I have explained, in order to eke out his pocket money, 
probably to buy either music or tobacco. ‘These frauds 
were sometimes, as Ernest thought, in imminent danger of 
being discovered, and it was a load off his breast when 
the cross-examination was safely over. This time Theobald 
had made a great fuss about the extras, but had grudgingly 
passed them; it was another matter, however, with the 
character and the moral statistics, with which the bill con- 
cluded. 

The page on which these details were to be found was 
as follows: 


REPORT OF THE ConNDUCT AND ProcREss OF ERNEST PONTIFEX 
Upper FirtrH Form, HALF YEAR ENDING MIDSUMMER 1851 


Classics—Idle, listless and unimproving. 

Mathematics A i 

Divinity 

Conduct in house—Orderly. 

General Conduct—Not satisfactory, on account of his great unpunctual- 
ity and inattention to duties. 


Monthly merit money 1s. 6d. 6d. od. 6d. Total 2s. 6d. 


«se ce 


Number of merit marks 2 fo) I I On botal 4 
Number of penal marks 26 20 25 #30 25 ~~ Total 126 
Number of extra penals 9 Gini: Una II Total 48 


I recommend that his pocket money be made to depend upon his 
merit money. 
S. SKINNER, Headmaster. 


174 The Way of All Flesh 


CHAPTER XXXVIII 


ERNEST was thus in disgrace from the beginning of the 
holidays, but an accident soon occurred which led him into 
delinquencies compared with which all his previous sins 
were venial. 

Among the servants at the Rectory was a remarkably 
pretty girl named Ellen. She came from Devonshire, and 
was the daughter of a fisherman who had been drowned 
when she was a child. Her mother set up a small shop in 
the village where her husband had lived, and just man- 
aged to make a living. Ellen remained with her till she 
was fourteen, when she first went out to service. Four 
years later, when she was about eighteen, but so well 
grown that she might have passed for twenty, she had been 
strongly recommended to Christina, who was then in 
want of a housemaid, and had now been at Battersby 
about twelve months. 

As I have said, the girl was remarkably pretty; she 
looked the perfection of health and good temper, indeed 
there was a serene expression upon her face which capti- 
vated almost all who saw her; she looked as if matters had 
always gone well with her and were always going to do so, 
and as if no conceivable combination of circumstances 
could put her for long together out of temper either with 
herself or with anyone else. Her complexion was clear, 
but high; her eyes were grey and beautifully shaped; her 
lips were full and restful, with something of an Egyptian 
Sphinxlike character about them. When I learned that 
she came from Devonshire I| fancied I saw a strain of far- 
away Egyptian blood in her, for I had heard, though I 
know not what foundation there was for the story, that the 
Egyptians made settlements on the coast of Devonshire 
and Cornwall long before the Romans conquered Britain. 
Her hair was a rich brown, and her figure—of about the 
middle height—perfect, but erring if at all on the side of 
robustness. Altogether she was one of those girls about 


The Way of All Flesh NUS 


whom one is inclined to wonder how they can remain un- 
married a week or a day longer. 

Her face (as indeed faces generally are, though I grant 
they lie sometimes) was a fair index to her disposition. 
She was good nature itself, and everyone in the house, not 
excluding I believe even Theobald himself after a fashion, 
was fond of her. As for Christina she took the very 
warmest interest in her, and used to have her into the 
dining-room twice a week, and prepare her for confirmation 
(for by some accident she had never been confirmed) by ex- 
plaining to her the geography of Palestine and the routes 
taken by St. Paul on his various journeys in Asia Minor. 

When Bishop Treadwell did actually come down to 
Battersby and hold a confirmation there (Christina had 
her wish, he slept at Battersby, and she had a grand dinner 
party for him, and called him “‘ My lord” several times), he 
was so much struck with her pretty face and modest de- 
meanour when he laid his hands upon her that he asked 
Christina about her. When she replied that Ellen was one 
of her own servants, the bishop seemed, so she thought or 
chose to think, quite pleased that so pretty a girl should 
have found so exceptionally good a situation. 

Ernest used to get up early during the holidays so that 
he might play the piano before breakfast without disturb- 
ing his papa and mamma—or rather, perhaps, without be- 
ing disturbed by them. Ellen would generally be there 
sweeping the drawing-room floor and dusting while he was 
playing, and the boy, who was ready to make friends with 
most people, soon became very fond of her. He was not as 
a general rule sensitive to the charms of the fair sex, indeed 
he had hardly been thrown in with any women except 
his Aunts Allaby, and his Aunt Alethea, his mother, his 
sister Charlotte and Mrs. Jay; sometimes also he had had 
to take off his hat to the Miss Skinners, and had felt as if 
he should sink into the earth on doing so, but his shyness 
had worn off with Ellen, and the pair had become fast 
friends. 


176 The Way of All Flesh 


Perhaps it was well that Ernest was not at home for very 
long together, but as yet his affection though hearty was 
quite Platonic. He was not only innocent, but deplor- 
ably—I might even say guiltily—innocent. His prefer- 
ence was based upon the fact that Ellen never scolded him, 
but was always smiling and good tempered; besides she 
used to like to hear him play, and this gave him additional 
zest in playing. The morning access to the piano was in- 
deed the one distinct advantage which the holidays had in 
Ernest’s eyes, for at school he could not get at a piano 
except quasi-surreptitiously at the shop of Mr. Pearsall, the 
music-seller. 

On returning this midsummer he was shocked to find his 
favourite looking pale and ill. All her good spirits had 
left her, the roses had fled from her cheek, and she seemed 
on the point of going into a decline. She said she was un- 
happy about her mother, whose health was failing, and 
was afraid she was herself not long for this world. Chris- 
tina, of course, noticed the change. “I have often re- 
marked,” she said, “that those very fresh-coloured, 
healthy-looking girls are the first to break up. I have 
given her calomel and James’s powders repeatedly, and 
though she does not like it, I think I must show her to Dr. 
Martin when he next comes here.” 

“Very well, my dear,” said Theobald, and so next time 
Dr. Martin came Ellen was sent for. Dr. Martin soon 
discovered what would probably have been apparent to 
Christina herself if she had been able to conceive of such 
an ailment in connection with a servant who lived under 
the same roof as Theobald and herself—the purity of whose 
married life should have preserved all unmarried people 
who came near them from any taint of mischief. 

When it was discovered that in three or four months 
more Ellen would become a mother, Christina’s natural 
good nature would have prompted her to deal as leniently 
with the case as she could, if she had not been panic- 
stricken lest any mercy on her and Theobald’s part should 


The Way of All Flesh 177 


be construed into toleration, however partial, of so great 
a sin; hereon she dashed off into the conviction that the 
only thing to do was to pay Ellen her wages, and pack her 
off on the instant bag and baggage out of the house which 
purity had more especially and particularly singled out for 
its abiding city. When she thought of the fearful con- 
tamination which Ellen’s continued presence even for a 
week would occasion, she could not hesitate. 

Then came the question—horrid thought!—as to who 
was the partner of Ellen’s guilt? Was it, could it be, her 
own son, her darling Ernest? Ernest was getting a big 
boy now. She could excuse any young woman for taking 
a fancy to him; as for himself, why she was sure he was 
behind no young man of his age in appreciation of the 
charms of a nice-looking young woman. So long as he was 
innocent she did not mind this, but oh, if he were guilty! 

She could not bear to think of it, and yet it would be 
mere cowardice not to look such a matter in the face— 
her hope was in the Lord, and she was ready to bear 
cheerfully and make the best of any suffering He might 
think fit to lay upon her. That the baby must be either 
a boy or girl—this much, at any rate, was clear. No less 
clear was it that the child, if a boy, would resemble Theo- 
bald, and if a girl, herself. Resemblance, whether of body 
or mind, generally leaped over a generation. The guilt 
of the parents must not be shared by the innocent off- 
spring of shame—oh! no—and such a child as this would 
be. . . . She was off in one of her reveries at once. 

The child was in the act of being consecrated Archbishop 
of Canterbury when Theobald came in from a visit in the 
parish, and was told of the shocking discovery. 

Christina said nothing about Ernest, and I believe was 
more than half angry when the blame was laid upon other 
shoulders. She was easily consoled, however, and fell back 
on the double reflection, firstly, that her son was pure, and 
secondly, that she was quite sure he would not have been 
so had it not been for his religious convictions which had 


178 The Way of All Flesh 


held him back—as, of course, it was only to be expected 
they would. 

Theobald agreed that no time must be lost in paying 
Ellen her wages and packing her off. So this was done, 
and less than two hours after Dr. Martin had entered the 
house Ellen was sitting beside John the coachman, with her 
face muffled up so that it could not be seen, weeping bit- 
terly as she was being driven to the station. 


CHAPTER XXXIX 


ERnEsT had been out all the morning, but came in to the 
yard of the Rectory from the spinney behind the house 
just as Ellen’s things were being put into the carriage. He 
thought it was Ellen whom he then saw get into the car- 
riage, but as her face had been hidden by her handker- 
chief he had not been able to see plainly who it was, and 
dismissed the idea as improbable. 

He went to the back-kitchen window, at which the cook 
was standing peeling the potatoes for dinner, and found 
her crying bitterly. Ernest was much distressed, for he 
liked the cook, and, of course, wanted to know what all 
the matter was, who it was that had just gone off in the 
pony carriage, and why? The cook told him it was Ellen, 
but said that no earthly power should make it cross her lips 
why it was she was going away; when, however, Ernest 
took her au pied de la lettre and asked no further questions, 
she told him all about it after extorting the most solemn 
promises of secrecy. 

It took Ernest some minutes to arrive at the facts of 
the case, but when he understood them he leaned against 
the pump, which stood near the back-kitchen window, and 
mingled his tears with the cook’s. 

Then his blood began to boil within him. He did not 
see that after all his father and mother could have done 
much otherwise than they actually did. They might per- 
haps have been less precipitate, and tried to keep the 


The Way of All Flesh 179 


matter a little more quiet, but this would not have been 
easy, nor would it have mended things very materially. 
The bitter fact remains that if a girl does certain things 
she must do them at her peril, no matter how young and 
pretty she is nor to what temptation she has succumbed. 
This is the way of the world, and as yet there has been no 
help found for it. 

Ernest could only see what he gathered from the cook, 
namely, that his favourite, Ellen, was being turned adrift 
with a matter of three pounds in her pocket, to go she 
knew not where, and to do she knew not what, and that 
she had said she should hang or drown herself, which the 
boy implicitly believed she would. 

With greater promptitude than he had shown yet, he 
reckoned up his money and found he had two shillings 
and threepence at his command; there was his knife which 
might sell for a shilling, and there was the silver watch his 
Aunt Alethea had given him shortly before she died. The 
carriage had been gone now a full quarter of an hour, and 
it must have got some distance ahead, but he would do 
his best to catch it up, and there were short cuts which 
would perhaps give him a chance. He was off at once, 
and from the top of the hill just past the Rectory paddock 
he could see the carriage, looking very small, on a bit of 
road which showed perhaps a mile and a half in front of 
him. 

One of the most popular amusements at Roughborough 
was an institution called “the hounds’”—more commonly 
known elsewhere as “‘hare and hounds,” but in this case 
the hare was a couple of boys who were called foxes, and 
boys are so particular about correctness of nomenclature 
where their sports are concerned that I dare not say they 
played “hare and hounds’’; these were “the hounds,” 
and that was all. Ernest’s want of muscular strength did 
not tell against him here; there was no jostling up against 
boys who, though neither older nor taller that he, were 
yet more robustly built; if it came to mere endurance he 


180 The Way of All Flesh 


was as good as anyone else, so when his carpentering was 
stopped he had naturally taken to “‘the hounds” as his 
favourite amusement. His lungs thus exercised had be- 
come developed, and as a run of six or seven miles across 
country was not more than he was used to, he did not de- 
spair by the help of the short cuts of overtaking the car- 
riage, or at the worst of catching Ellen at the station before 
the train left. So he ran and ran and ran till his first wind 
was gone and his second came, and he could breathe more 
easily. Never with “the hounds” had he run so fast and 
with so few breaks as now, but with all his efforts and the 
help of the short cuts he did not catch up the carriage, and 
would probably not have done so had not John happened 
to turn his head and seen him running and making signs for 
the carriage to stop a quarter of a mile off. He was now 
about five miles from home, and was nearly done up. 

He was crimson with his exertion; covered with dust, 
and with his trousers and coat sleeves a trifle short for him 
he cut a poor figure enough as he thrust on Ellen his watch, 
his knife, and the little money he had. The one thing he 
implored of her was not to do those dreadful things which 
she threatened—for his sake if for no other reason. 

Ellen at first would not hear of taking anything from 
him, but the coachman, who was from the north country, 
sided with Ernest. “Take it, my lass,” he said kindly; 
“take what thou canst get whiles thou canst get it; as for 
Master Ernest here—he has run well after thee; therefore 
let him give thee what he is minded.” 

Ellen did what she was told, and the two parted with 
many tears, the girl’s last words being that she should never 
forget him, and that they should meet again hereafter, 
she was sure they should, and then she would repay him. 

Then Ernest got into a field by the roadside, flung 
himself on the grass, and waited under the shadow of a 
hedge till the carriage should pass on its return from the 
station and pick him up, for he was dead beat. Thoughts 
which had already occurred to him with some force now 


The Way of All Flesh 181 


came more strongly before him, and he saw that he had 
got himself into one mess—or rather into a half-a-dozen 
messes—the more. 

In the first place he should be late for dinner, and this 
was one of the offences on which Theobald had no mercy. 
Also he should have to say where he had been, and there 
was a danger of being found out if he did not speak the 
truth. Not only this, but sooner or later it must come out 
that he was no longer possessed of the beautiful watch 
which his dear aunt had given him—and what, pray, had 
he done with it, or how had he lost it? The reader will 
know very well what he ought to have done. He should 
have gone straight home, and if questioned should have 
said, “I have been running after the carriage to catch our 
housemaid Ellen, whom I am very fond of; I have given 
her my watch, my knife and all my pocket money, so that 
I have now no pocket money at all and shall probably ask 
you for some more sooner than I otherwise might have 
done, and you will also have to buy me a new watch and a 
knife.”” But then fancy the consternation which such an 
announcement would have occasioned! Fancy the growl 
and flashing eyes of the infuriated Theobald! “‘You un- 
principled young scoundrel,”’ he would exclaim, “‘do you 
mean to vilify your own parents by implying that they 
have dealt harshly by one whose profligacy has disgraced 
their house?” 

Or he might take it with one of those sallies of sarcastic 
calm, of which he believed himself to be a master. 

“Very well, Ernest, very well: I shall say nothing; you 
can please yourself; you are not yet twenty-one, but pray 
act as if you were your own master; your poor aunt doubt- 
less gave you the watch that you might fling it away upon 
the first improper character you came across; I think I 
can now understand, however, why she did not leave you 
her money; and, after all, your godfather may just as well 
have it as the kind of people on whom you would lavish it 
if it were yours.”’ 


182 The Way of All Flesh 


Then his mother would burst into tears and implore 
him to repent and seek the things belonging to his peace 
while there was yet time, by falling on his knees to Theo- 
bald and assuring him of his unfailing love for him as the 
kindest and tenderest father in the universe. Ernest could 
do all this just as well as they could, and now, as he lay 
on the grass, speeches, some one or other of which was as 
certain to come as the sun to set, kept running in his head 
till they confuted the idea of telling the truth by reducing 
itto an absurdity. Truth might be heroic, but it was not 
within the range of practical domestic politics. 

Having settled then that he was to tell a lie, what lie 
should he tell? Should he say he had been robbed? He 
had enough imagination to know that he had not enough 
imagination to carry him out here. Young as he was, his 
instinct told him that the best liar is he who makes the 
smallest amount of lying go the longest way—who hus- 
bands it too carefully to waste it where it can be dispensed 
with. The simplest course would be to say that he had 
lost the watch, and was late for dinner because he had 
been looking for it. He had been out for a long walk—he 
chose the line across the fields that he had actually taken— 
and the weather being very hot, he had taken off his coat 
and waistcoat; in carrying them over his arm his watch, 
his money, and his knife had dropped out of them. He 
had got nearly home when he found out his loss, and had 
run back as fast as he could, looking along the line he 
had followed, till at last he had given it up; seeing the 
carriage coming back from the station, he had let it pick 
him up and bring him home. 

This covered everything, the running and all; for his 
face still showed that he must have been running hard; 
the only question was whether he had been seen about the 
Rectory by any but the servants for a couple of hours or 
so before Ellen had gone, and this he was happy to believe 
was not the case; for he had been out except during his 
few minutes’ interview with the cook. His father had been 


The Way of All Flesh 183 


out in the parish; his mother had certainly not come across 
him, and his brother and sister had also been out with 
the governess. He knew he could depend upon the cook 
and the other servants—the coachman would see to this; 
on the whole, therefore, both he and the coachman thought 
the story as proposed by Ernest would about meet the 
requirements of the case. 


CHAPTER XL 


WHEN Ernest got home and sneaked in through the back 
door, he heard his father’s voice in its angriest tones, in- 
quiring whether Master Ernest had already returned. He 
felt as Jack must have felt in the story of Jack and the Bean 
Stalk, when from the oven in which he was hidden he heard 
the ogre ask his wife what young children she had got for 
his supper. With much courage, and, as the event proved, 
with not less courage than discretion, he took the bull by 
the horns, and announced himself at once as having just 
come in after having met with a terrible misfortune. Little 
by little he told his story, and though Theobald stormed 
somewhat at his “incredible folly and carelessness,’ he got 
off better than he expected. Theobald and Christina had 
indeed at first been inclined to connect his absence from 
dinner with Ellen’s dismissal, but on finding it clear, as 
Theobald said—everything was always clear with Theo- 
bald—that Ernest had not been in the house all the morn- 
ing, and could therefore have known nothing of what had 
happened, he was acquitted on this account for once in a 
way, without a stain upon his character. Perhaps Theo- 
bald was in a good temper; he may have seen from the 
paper that morning that his stocks had been rising; it may 
have been this or twenty other things, but whatever it was, 
he did not scold so much as Ernest had expected, and, 
seeing the boy look exhausted and believing him to be 
much grieved at the loss of his watch, Theobald actually 
prescribed a glass of wine after his dinner, which, strange 


184 The Way of Ail Flesh 


to say, did not choke him, but made him see things more 
cheerfully than was usual with him. 

That night when he said his prayers, he inserted a few 
paragraphs to the effect that he might not be discovered, 
and that things might go well with Ellen, but he was 
anxious and ill at ease. His guilty conscience pointed out 
to him a score of weak places in his story, through any one 
of which detection might even yet easily enter. Next day 
and for many days afterwards he fled when no man was 
pursuing, and trembled each time he heard his father’s 
voice calling for him. He had already so many causes of 
anxiety that he could stand little more, and in spite of all 
his endeavours to look cheerful, even his mother could see 
that something was preying upon his mind. Then the idea 
returned to her that, after all, her son might not be inno- 
cent in the Ellen matter—and this was so interesting that 
she felt bound to get as near the truth as she could. 

“Come here, my poor, pale-faced, heavy-eyed boy,” 
she said to him one day in her kindest manner; “‘come and 
sit down by me, and we will have a little quiet confidential 
talk together, will we not?”’ 

The boy went mechanically to the sofa. Whenever his 
mother wanted what she called a confidential talk with him 
she always selected the sofa as the most suitable ground > 
on which to open her campaign. All mothers do this; the 
sofa is to them what the dining-room is to fathers. In the 
present case the sofa was particularly well adapted for a 
strategic purpose, being an old-fashioned one with a high 
back, mattress, bolsters and cushions. Once safely penned 
into one of its deep corners, it was like a dentist’s chair, 
not too easy to get out of again. Here she could get at 
him better to pull him about, if this should seem desirable, 
or if she thought fit to cry she could bury her head in the 
sofa cushion and abandon herself to an agony of grief 
which seldom failed of its effect. None of her favourite 
manoeuvres were so easily adopted in her usual seat, the 
armchair on the right hand side of the fireplace, and so well 


The Way of All Flesh 185 


did her son know from his mother’s tone that this was going 
to be a sofa conversation that he took his place like a 
lamb as soon as she began to speak and before she could 
reach the sofa herself. 

“My dearest boy,” began his mother, taking hold of his 
hand and placing it within her own, “promise me never to 
be afraid either of your dear papa or of me; promise me 
this, my dear, as you love me, promise it to me,” and she 
kissed him again and again and stroked his hair. But with 
her other hand she still kept hold of his; she had got him 
and she meant to keep him. 

The lad hung down his head and promised. What else 
could he do? 

“You know there is no one, dear, dear Ernest, who loves 
you so much as your papa and I do; no one who watches 
so carefully over your interests or who is so anxious to 
enter into all your little joys and troubles as we are; but, 
my dearest boy, it grieves me to think sometimes that you 
have not that perfect love for and confidence in us which 
you ought to have. You know, my darling, that it would 
be as much our pleasure as our duty to watch over the de- 
velopment of your moral and spiritual nature, but alas! 
you will not let us see your moral and spiritual nature. 
At times we are almost inclined to doubt whether you have 
a moral and spiritual nature at all. Of your inner life, 
my dear, we know nothing beyond such scraps as we can 
glean in spite of you, from little things which escape you 
almost before you know that you have said them.”’ 

The boy winced at this. It made him feel hot and un- 
comfortable all over. He knew well how careful he ought 
to be, and yet, do what he could, from time to time his 
forgetfulness of the part betrayed him into unreserve. 
His mother saw that he winced, and enjoyed the scratch 
she had given him. Had she felt less confident of vic- 
tory she had better have foregone the pleasure of touching 
as it were the eyes at the end of the snail’s horns in 
order to enjoy seeing the snail draw them in again— 


186 The Way of All Flesh 


but she knew that when she had got him well down into 
the sofa, and held his hand, she had the enemy almost ab- 
solutely at her mercy, and could do pretty much what she 
liked. 

“Papa does not feel,”’ she continued, “‘that you love him 
with that fulness and unreserve which would prompt you 
to have no concealment from him, and to tell him every- 
thing freely and fearlessly as your most loving earthly 
friend next only to your Heavenly Father. Perfect love, 
as we know, casteth out fear: your father loves you per- 
fectly, my darling, but he does not feel as though you 
loved him perfectly in return. If you fear him it is be- 
cause you do not love him as he deserves, and I know it 
sometimes cuts him to the very heart to think that he has 
earned from you a deeper and more willing sympathy than 
you display towards him. Oh, Ernest, Ernest, do not 
grieve one who is so good and noble-hearted by conduct 
which I can call by no other name than ingratitude.” 

Ernest could never stand being spoken to in this way 
by his mother: for he still believed that she loved him, 
and that he was fond of her and had a friend in her— 
up to a certain point. But his mother was beginning to 
come to the end of her tether; she had played the domes- 
tic confidence trick upon him times without number 
already. Over and over again had she wheedled from him 
all she wanted to know, and afterwards got him into the 
most horrible scrape by telling the whole to Theobald. 
Ernest had remonstrated more than once upon these oc- 
casions, and had pointed out to his mother how disastrous 
to him his confidences had been, but Christina had always 
joined issue with him and showed him in the clearest pos- 
sible manner that in each case she had been right, and that 
he could not reasonably complain. Generally it was her 
conscience that forbade her to be silent, and against this 
there was no appeal, for we are all bound to follow the 
dictates of our conscience. Ernest used to have to recite 
a hymn about conscience. It was to the effect that if you 


The Way of All Flesh 187 


did not pay attention to its voice it would soon leave off 
speaking. “My mamma’s conscience has not left off speak- 
ing,” said Ernest to one of his chums at Roughborough; 
“it’s always jabbering.” 

When a boy has once spoken so disrespectfully as this 
about his mother’s conscience it is practically all over be- 
tween him and her. Ernest through sheer force of habit, 
of the sofa, and of the return of the associated ideas, was 
still so moved by the siren’s voice as to yearn to sail 
towards her, and fling himself into her arms, but it would 
not do; there were other associated ideas that returned 
also, and the mangled bones of too many murdered confes- 
sions were lying whitening round the skirts of his mother’s 
dress, to allow him by any possibility to trust her further. 
So he hung his head and looked sheepish, but kept his own 
counsel. 

“‘T see, my dearest,’ continued his mother, “ either that 
I am mistaken, and that there is nothing on your mind, 
or that you will not unburden yourself to me: but oh, 
Ernest, tell me at least this much; is there nothing that 
you repent of, nothing which makes you unhappy in con- 
nection with that miserable girl Ellen?” 

Ernest’s heart failed him. “I am a dead boy now,” 
he said to himself. He had not the faintest conception 
what his mother was driving at, and thought she suspected 
about the watch; but he held his ground. 

I do not believe he was much more of a coward than 
his neighbours, only he did not know that all sensible peo- 
ple are cowards when they are off their beat, or when 
they think they are going to be roughly handled. I be- 
lieve that if the truth were known, it would be found that 
even the valiant St. Michael himself tried hard to shirk 
his famous combat with the dragon; he pretended not to 
see all sorts of misconduct on the dragon’s part; shut his 
eyes to the eating up of I do not know how many hundreds 
of men, women and children whom he had promised to 
protect; allowed himself to be publicly insulted a dozen 


188 The Way of All Flesh 


times over without resenting it; and in the end, when even 
an angel could stand it no longer, he shilly-shallied and 
temporised an unconscionable time before he would fix 
the day and hour for the encounter. As for the actual 
combat it was much such another wurra-wurra as Mrs. 
Allaby had had with the young man who had in the end 
married her eldest daughter, till after a time, behold, 
there was the dragon lying dead, while he was himself 
alive and not very seriously hurt after all. 

“T do not know what you mean, Mamma,” exclaimed 
Ernest anxiously and more or less hurriedly. His mother 
construed his manner into indignation at being suspected, 
and being rather frightened herself she turned tail and 
scuttled off as fast as her tongue could carry her. 

“Oh!” she said, “‘I see by your tone that you are inno- 
cent! Oh! oh! how I thank my heavenly Father for this; 
may He for His dear Son’s sake keep you always pure. 
Your father, my dear’”—(here she spoke hurriedly but 
gave him a searching look) ‘“‘was as pure as a spotless 
angel when hecametome. Like him, always be self-deny- 
ing, truly truthful both in word and deed, never forget- 
ful whose son and grandson you are, nor of the name we 
gave you, of the sacred stream in whose waters your sins 
were washed out of you through the blood and blessing of 
Christ,” etc. 

But Ernest cut this—I will not say short—but a great 
deal shorter than it would have been if Christina had had 
her say out, by extricating himself from his mamma’s 
embrace and showing a clean pair of heels. As he got near 
the purlieus of the kitchen (where he was more at ease) 
he heard his father calling for his mother, and again his 
guilty conscience rose against him. “He has found all out 
now,” it cried, ‘‘and he is going to tell mamma—this time 
I am done for.’’ But there was nothing in it; his father 
only wanted the key of the cellaret. Then Ernest slunk 
off into a coppice or spinney behind the Rectory paddock, 
and consoled himself with a pipe of tobacco. Here in the 


The Way of All Flesh 189 


wood with the summer sun streaming through the trees 
and a book and his pipe the boy forgot his cares and had 
an interval of that rest without which I verily believe his 
life would have been insupportable. 

Of course, Ernest was made to look for his lost prop- 
erty, and a reward was offered for it, but it seemed he had 
wandered a good deal off the path, thinking to find a 
lark’s nest, more than once, and looking for a watch and 
purse on Battersby piewipes was very like looking for a 
needle in a bundle of hay: besides it might have been found 
and taken by some tramp, or by a magpie of which there 
were many in the neighbourhood, so that after a week or 
ten days the search was discontinued, and the unpleasant 
fact had to be faced that Ernest must have another watch, 
another knife, and a small sum of pocket money. 

It was only right, however, that Ernest should pay 
half the cost of the watch; this should be made easy for 
him, for it should be deducted from his pocket money in 
half-yearly instalments extending over two, or even it 
might be three years. In Ernest’s own interests, then, as 
well as those of his father and mother, it would be well 
that the watch should cost as little as possible, so it was 


resolved to buy a second-hand one. Nothing was to be 


said to Ernest, but it was to be bought, and laid upon his 
plate as a surprise just before the holidays were over. 
Theobald would have to go to the county town in a few 
days, and could then find some second-hand watch which 
would answer sufficiently well. In the course of time, 
therefore, Theobald went, furnished with a long list of 
household commissions, among which was the purchase of 
a watch for Ernest. 

Those, as I have said, were always happy times, when 
Theobald was away for a whole day certain; the boy was 
beginning to feel easy in his mind as though God had heard 
his prayers, and he was not going to be found out. Al- 
together the day had proved an unusually tranquil one, 
but, alas! it was not to close as it had begun; the fickle 


190 The Way of All Flesh 


atmosphere in which he lived was never more likely to 
breed a storm than after such an interval of brilliant calm, 
and when Theobald returned Ernest had only to look in 
his face to see that a hurricane was approaching. 

Christina saw that something had gone very wrong, and 
was quite frightened lest Theobald should have heard of 
some serious money loss; he did not, however, at once 
unbosom himself, but rang the bell and said to the serv- 
ant, ““Tell Master Ernest I wish to speak to him in the 
dining-room.” 


CHAPTER xi 


Lona before Ernest reached the dining-room his ill-divin- 
ing soul had told him that his sin had found him out. 
What head of a family ever sends for any of its members 
into the dining-room if his intentions are honourable? 

When he reached it he found it empty—his father hav- 
ing been called away for a few minutes unexpectedly upon 
some parish business—and he was left in the same kind of 
suspense as people are in after they have been ushered into 
their dentist’s ante-room. 

Of all the rooms in the house he hated the dining-room 
worst. It was here that he had had to do his Latin and 
Greek lessons with his father. It had a smell of some 
particular kind of polish or varnish which was used in 
polishing the furniture, and neither I nor Ernest can even 
now come within range of the smell of this kind of varnish 
without our hearts failing us. 

Over the chimney-piece there was a veritable old master, 
one of the few original pictures which Mr. George Pontifex 
had brought from Italy. It was supposed to be a Salva- 
tor Rosa, and had been bought as a great bargain. The 
subject was Elijah or Elisha (whichever it was) being 
fed by the ravens in the desert. There were the ravens 
in the upper right-hand corner with bread and meat in 
their beaks and claws, and there was the prophet in ques- 
tion in the lower left-hand corner looking longingly up 


The Way of All Flesh 191 


towards them. When Ernest was a very small boy it had 
been a constant matter of regret to him that the food 
which the ravens carried never actually reached the 
prophet; he did not understand the limitation of the 
painter’s art, and wanted the meat and the prophet to be 
brought into direct contact. One day, with the help of 
some steps which had been left in the room, he had clam- 
bered up to the picture and with a piece of bread and but- 
ter traced a greasy line across it from the ravens to Elisha’s 
mouth, after which he had felt more comfortable. 

Ernest’s mind was drifting back to this youthful esca- 
pade when he heard his father’s hand on the door, and 
in another second Theobald entered. 

“Oh, Ernest,” said he, in an off-hand, rather cheery 
manner, “there’s a little matter which I should like you to 
explain to me, as I have no doubt you very easily can.” 
Thump, thump, thump, went Ernest’s heart against his 
ribs; but his father’s manner was so much nicer than 
usual that he began to think it might be after all only an- 
other false alarm. 

“It had occurred to your mother and myself that we 
should like to set you up with a watch again before you 
went back to school” (Oh, that’s all,” said Ernest to 
himself, quite relieved), ‘‘and I have been to-day to look 
out for a second-hand one which should answer every 
purpose so long as you are at school.”’ 

Theobald spoke as if watches had half-a-dozen purposes 
besides time-keeping, but he could hardly open his mouth 
without using one or other of his tags, and “‘answering 
every purpose” was one of them. 

Ernest was breaking out into the usual expressions of 
gratitude, when Theobald continued, “You are interrupt- 
ing me,” and Ernest’s heart thumped again. 

“You are interrupting me, Ernest. I have not yet 
done.” Ernest was instantly dumb. 

“T passed several shops with second-hand watches for 
sale, but I saw none of a description and price which 


192 The Way of All Flesh 


pleased me, till at last I was shown one which had, so the 
shopman said, been left with him recently for sale, and 
which I at once recognised as the one which had been 
given you by your Aunt Alethea. Even if I had failed to 
recognise it, as perhaps I might have done, I should have 
identified it directly it reached my hands, inasmuch as it 
had ‘E. P., a present from A. P.’ engraved upon the in- 
side. I need say no more to show that this was the very 
watch which you told your mother and me that you had 
dropped out of your pocket.” 

Up to this time Theobald’s manner had been studiously 
calm, and his words had been uttered slowly, but here he 
suddenly quickened and flung off the mask as he added 
the words, ‘‘or some such cock and bull story, which your 
mother and I were too truthful to disbelieve. You can 
guess what must be our feelings now.” 

Ernest felt that this last home-thrust was just. In his 
less anxious moments he had thought his papa and mamma 
“‘sreen” for the readiness with which they believed him, 
but he could not deny that their credulity was a proof of 
their habitual truthfulness of mind. On common justice he 
must own that it was very dreadful for two such truth- 
ful people to have a son as untruthful as he knew himself 
to be. 

“Believing that a son of your mother and myself would 
be incapable of falsehood I at once assumed that some 
tramp had picked the watch up and was now trying to 
dispose of it.”’ 

This, to the best of my belief, was not accurate. Theo- 
bald’s first assumption had been that it was Ernest who 
was trying to sell the watch, and it was an inspiration of 
the moment to say that his magnanimous mind had at once 
conceived the idea of a tramp. 

“You may imagine how shocked I was when I discov- 
ered that the watch had been brought for sale by that mis- 
erable woman Ellen’—here Ernest’s heart hardened a 
little, and he felt as near an approach to an instinct to turn 


The Way of Ali Flesh 193 


as one so defenceless could be expected to feel; his father 
quickly perceived this and continued, “who was turned 
out of this house in circumstances which I will not pollute 
your ears by more particularly describing. 

‘I put aside the horrid conviction which was beginning 
to dawn upon me, and assumed that in the interval be- 
tween her dismissal and her leaving this house, she had 
added theft to her other sin, and having found your watch 
in your bedroom had purloined it. It even occurred to me 
that you might have missed your watch after the woman 
was gone, and, suspecting who had taken it, had run after 
the carriage in order to recover it; but when I told the 
shopman of my suspicions he assured me that the person 
who left it with him had declared most solemnly that it 
had been given her by her master’s son, whose property it 
was, and who had a perfect right to dispose of it. 

“He told me further that, thinking the circumstances in 
which the watch was offered for sale somewhat suspi- 
cious, he had insisted upon the woman’s telling him the 
whole story of how she came by it, before he would consent 
to buy it of her. 

““He said that at first—as women of that stamp inva- 
riably do—she tried prevarication, but on being threatened 
that she should at once be given into custody if she did 
not tell the whole truth, she described the way in which 
you had run after the carriage, till as she said you were 
black in the face, and insisted on giving her all your pocket 
money, your knife and your watch. She added that my 
coachman John—whom I shall instantly discharge—was 
witness to the whole transaction. Now, Ernest, be pleased 
to tell me whether this appalling story is true or false?”’ 

It never occurred to Ernest to ask his father why he did 
not hit a man his own size, or to stop him midway in the 
story with a remonstrance against being kicked when he 
was down. The boy was too much shocked and shaken 
to be inventive; he could only drift and stammer out that 
the tale was true. 


194 The Way of All Flesh 


*‘So I feared,”’ said Theobald, ‘‘and now, Ernest, be 
good enough to ring the bell.”’ 

When the bell had been answered, Theobald desired 
that John should be sent for, and when John came Theo- 
bald calculated the wages due to him and desired him at 
once to leave the house. 

John’s manner was quiet and respectful. He took his 
dismissal as a matter of course, for Theobald had hinted 
enough to make him understand why he was being dis- 
charged, but when he saw Ernest sitting pale and awe- 
struck on the edge of his chair against the dining-room 
wall, a sudden thought seemed to strike him, and turning 
to Theobald he said in a broad northern accent which 
I will not attempt to reproduce: 

“Look here, master, I can guess what all this is 
about—now before I goes I want to have a word with 
you.” 

“Ernest,” said Theobald, “‘leave the room.” 

“No, Master Ernest, you shan’t,” satd John, planting 
himself against the door. ‘“‘ Now, master,”’ he continued, 
*‘you may do as you please about me. I’ve been a good 
servant to you, and | don’t mean to say as you’ve been a 
bad master to me, but I do say that if you bear hardly on 
Master Ernest here I have those in the village as’ll hear 
on’t and let me know; and if I do hear on’t I’ll come back 
and break every bone in your skin, so there!” 

John’s breath came and went quickly, as though he 
would have been well enough pleased to begin the bone- 
breaking business at once. Theobald turned of an ashen 
colour—not, as he explained afterwards, at the idle threats 
of a detected and angry rufhan, but at such atrocious inso- 
lence from one of his own servants. 

“*T shall leave Master Ernest, John,” he rejoined proudly, 
“to the reproaches of his own conscience.” (“Thank God 
and thank John,” thought Ernest.) ‘“‘As for yourself, I 
admit that you have been an excellent servant until this 
unfortunate business came on, and I shall have much pleas- 


The Way of All Flesh 195 


ure in giving you a character if you want one. Have you 
anything more to say?” 

“No more nor what I have said,” said John sullenly, 
“but what I’ve said I means and [Il stick to—character 
or no character.”’ 

“Oh, you need not be afraid about your character, 
John,”’ said Theobald kindly, “and as it is getting late, 
there can be no occasion for you to leave the house before 
to-morrow morning.” 

To this there was no reply from John, who retired, 
packed up his things, and left the house at once. 

When Christina heard what had happened she said she 
could condone all except that Theobald should have been 
subjected to such insolence from one of his own servants 
through the misconduct of his son. Theobald was the 
bravest man in the whole world, and could easily have 
collared the wretch and turned him out of the room, but 
how far more dignified, how far nobler had been his reply! 
How it would tell in a novel or upon the stage, for though 
the stage as a whole was immoral, yet there were doubt- 
less some plays which were improving spectacles. She 
could fancy the whole house hushed with excitement at 
hearing John’s menace, and hardly breathing by reason 
of their interest and expectation of the coming answer. 
Then the actor—probably the great and good Mr. Mac- 
ready—would say, “I shall leave Master Ernest, John, 
to the reproaches of his own conscience.”? Oh, it was sub- 
lime! What a roar of applause must follow! Then she 
should enter herself, and fling her arms about her husband’s 
neck, and call him her lion-hearted husband. When the 
curtain dropped, it would be buzzed about the house that 
the scene just witnessed had been drawn from real life, and 
had actually occurred in the household of the Rev. Theo- 
bald Pontifex, who had married a Miss Allaby, etc., etc. 

As regards Ernest the suspicions which had already 
crossed her mind were deepened, but she thought it better 
to leave the matter where it was. At present she was in 


196 The Way of All Flesh 


a very strong position. Ernest’s official purity was firmly 
established, but at the same time he had shown himself so: 
susceptible that she was able to fuse two contradictory 
impressions concerning him into a single idea, and con- 
sider him as a kind of Joseph and Don Juan in one. 
This was what she had wanted all along, but her vanity 
being gratified by the possession of such a son, there was 
an end of it; the son himself was naught. 

No doubt if John had not interfered, Ernest would 
have had to expiate his offence with ache, penury and 
imprisonment. As it was the boy was to “‘consider him- 
self’ as undergoing these punishments, and as suffering 
pangs of unavailing remorse inflicted on him by his con- 
science into the bargain; but beyond the fact that Theo- 
bald kept him more closely to his holiday task, and the con- 
tinued coldness of his parents, no ostensible punishment 
was meted out to him. Ernest, however, tells me that he 
looks back upon this as the time when he began to know 
that he had a cordial and active dislike for both his par- 
ents, which I suppose means that he was now beginning 
to be aware that he was reaching man’s estate. 


CHAPTER XLII 


AsouTt a week before he went back to school his father 
again sent for him into the dining-room, and told him 
that he should restore him his watch, but that he should 
deduct the sum he had paid for it—for he had thought it 
better to pay a few shillings rather than dispute the owner- 
ship of the watch, seeing that Ernest had undoubtedly 
given it to Ellen—from his pocket money, in payments 
which should extend over two half years. He would there- 
fore have to go back to Roughborough this half year with 
only five shillings’ pocket money. If he wanted more 
he must earn more merit money. 

Emmest was not so careful about money as a pattern boy 
should be. He did not say to himself, ‘“Now I have got 


The Way of All Flesh 197 


a sovereign which must last me fifteen weeks, therefore 
I may spend exactly one shilling and fourpence in each 
week’’—and spend exactly one and fourpence in each week 
accordingly. He ran through his money at about the same 
rate as other boys did, being pretty well cleaned out a 
few days after he had got back to school. When he had 
no more money, he got a little into debt, and when as 
far in debt as he could see his way to repaying, he went 
without luxuries. Immediately he got any money he would 
pay his debts; if there was any over he would spend it; 
if there was not—and there seldom was—he would begin 
to go on tick again. 

His finance was always based upon the supposition that 
he should go back to school with £1 in his pocket—of which 
he owed say a matter of fifteen shillings. There would 
be five shillings for sundry school subscriptions—but when 
these were paid the weekly allowance of sixpence given to 
each boy in hall, his merit money (which this half he 
was resolved should come to a good sum) and renewed 
credit, would carry him through the half. 

The sudden failure of 15/—-was disastrous to my hero’s 
scheme of finance. His face betrayed his emotions so 
clearly that Theobald said he was determined “‘to learn the 
truth at once, and this time without days and days of 
falsehood” before he reached it. The melancholy fact was 
not long in coming out, namely, that the wretched Ernest 
added debt to the vices of idleness, falsehood and possibly 
—for it was not impossible—immorality. 

How had he come to get into debt? Did the other boys 
do so? Ernest reluctantly admitted that they did. 

With what shops did they get into debt? 

This was asking too much, Ernest said he didn’t know! 

*“Oh, Ernest, Ernest,’ exclaimed his mother, who was 
in the room, “do not so soon a second time presume upon 
the forbearance of the tenderest-hearted father in the 
world. Give time for one stab to heal before you wound 
him with another.” 


198 The Way of All Flesh 


This was all very fine, but what was Ernest to do? How 
could he get the school shopkeepers into trouble by own- 
ing that they let some of the boys go on tick with them? 
There was Mrs. Cross, a good old soul, who used to sell 
hot rolls and butter for breakfast, or eggs and toast, or it 
might be the quarter of a fowl with bread sauce and 
mashed potatoes for which she would charge 6d. If she 
made a farthing out of the sixpence it was as much as she 
did. When the boys would come trooping into her shop 
after “the hounds” how often had not Ernest heard her say 
to her servant girls, “‘Now then, you wanches, git some 
cheers.”’ All the boys were fond of her, and was he, Ernest, 
to tell tales about her? It was horrible. 

“Now look here, Ernest,” said his father with his black- 
est scowl, “I am going to put a stop to this nonsense once 
for all. Either take me fully into your confidence, as a son 
should take a father, and trust me to deal with this matter 
as a clergyman and a man of the world—or understand 
distinctly that I shall take the whole story to Dr. Skinner, 
who, I imagine, will take much sterner measures than | 
should.” 

“Oh, Ernest, Ernest,” sobbed Christina, “be wise in 
time, and trust those who have already shown you that 
they know but too well how to be forbearing.” 

No genuine hero of romance should have hesitated for 
a moment. Nothing should have cajoled or frightened 
him into telling tales out of school. Ernest thought of his 
ideal boys: they, he well knew, would have let their tongues 
be cut out of them before information could have been 
wrung from any word of theirs. But Ernest was not an 
ideal boy, and he was not strong enough for his surround- 
ings; I doubt how far any boy could withstand the moral 
pressure which was brought to bear upon him; at any rate 
he could not do so, and after a little more writhing he 
yielded himself a passive prey to the enemy. He consoled 
himself with the reflection that his papa had not played 
the confidence trick on him quite as often as his mamma 


The Way of All Flesh 199 


had, and that probably it was better he should tell his 
father, than that his father should insist on Dr. Skinner’s 
making an inquiry. His papa’s conscience “jabbered” 
a good deal, but not as much as his mamma’s. The little 
fool forgot that he had not given his father as many 
chances of betraying him as he had given to Chris- 
tina. 

Then it all came out. He owed this at Mrs. Cross’s, 
and this to Mrs. Jones, and this at the “Swan and Bottle” 
public house, to say nothing of another shilling or six- 
pence or two in other quarters. Nevertheless, Theobald 
and Christina were not satiated, but rather the more they 
discovered the greater grew their appetite for discovery; it 
was their obvious duty to find out everything, for though 
they might rescue their own darling from this hotbed of 
iniquity without getting to know more than they knew at 
present, were there not other papas and mammas with 
darlings whom also they were bound to rescue if it were yet 
possible? What boys, then, owed money to these harpies 
as well as Ernest? 

Here, again, there was a feeble show of resistance, but 
the thumbscrews were instantly applied, and Ernest, 
demoralised as he already was, recanted and submitted 
himself to the powers that were. He told only a little less 
than he knew or thought he knew. He was examined, re- 
examined, cross-examined, sent to the retirement of his 
own bedroom and cross-examined again; the smoking in 
Mrs. Jones’ kitchen all came out; which boys smoked and 
which did not; which boys owed money and, roughly, how 
much and where; which boys swore and used bad language. 
Theobald was resolved that this time Ernest should, as 
he called it, take him into his confidence without reserve, 
so the school list which went with Dr. Skinner’s half- 
yearly bills was brought out, and the most secret character 
of each boy was gone through seriatim by Mr. and Mrs. 
Pontifex, so far as it was in Ernest’s power to give informa- 
tion concerning it, and yet Theobald had on the preceding 


200 The Way of All Flesh 


Sunday preached a less feeble sermon than he commonly 
preached, upon the horrors of the Inquisition. No matter 
how awful was the depravity revealed to them, the pair 
never flinched, but probed and probed, till they were on 
the point of reaching subjects more delicate than they 
had yet touched upon. Here Ernest’s unconscious self 
took the matter up and made a resistance to which his 
conscious self was unequal, by tumbling him off his chair, 
in a fit of fainting. 

Dr. Martin was sent for and pronounced the boy to be 
seriously unwell; at the same time he prescribed absolute 
rest and absence from nervous excitement. So the anx- 
ious parents were unwillingly compelled to be content with 
what they had got already—being frightened into leading 
him a quiet life for the short remainder of the holidays. 
They were not idle, but Satan can find as much mischief for 
busy hands as for idle ones, so he sent a little job in the 
direction of Battersby which Theobald and Christina un- 
dertook immediately. It would be a pity, they reasoned, 
that Ernest should leave Roughborough, now that he had 
been there three years; it would be difficult to find another 
school for him, and to explain why he had left Roughbor- 
ough. Besides, Dr. Skinner and Theobald were supposed 
to be old friends, and it would be unpleasant to offend him; 
these were all valid reasons for not removing the boy. 
The proper thing to do then, would be to warn Dr. Skinner 
confidentially of the state of his school, and to furnish him 
with a school list annotated with the remarks extracted 
from Ernest, which should be appended to the name of 
each boy. 

Theobald was the perfection of neatness; while his son 
was ill upstairs, he copied out the school list so that he 
could throw his comments into a tabular form, which as- 
sumed the following shape—only that of course I have 
changed the names. One cross in each square was to indi- 
cate occasional offence; two stood for frequent, and three 
for habitual delinquency. 


The Way of All Flesh 201 











Drinking Swearing 
Smoking. beer at the and Notes 
“ Swan and Obscene 

Bottle.” Language. 

Sanithtiy fo) fo) ba, Will smoke 
next half. 

Brown REX X fo) o 
Jones. x eh SX 


Robinson . 


And thus through the whole school. 

Of course, in justice to Ernest, Dr. Skinner would be 
bound over to secrecy before a word was said to him, but, 
Ernest being thus protected, he could not be furnished 
with the facts too completely. 


CHAPTER XLIII 


So important did Theobald consider this matter that he 
made a special journey to Roughborough before the half 
year began. It was a relief to have him out of the house, 
but though his destination was not mentioned, Ernest 
guessed where he had gone. 

To this day he considers his conduct at this crisis to 
have been one of the most serious laches of his life—one 
which he can never think of without shame and indigna- 
tion. He says he ought to have run away from home. 
But what good could he have done if he had? He would 
have been caught, brought back and examined two days 
later instead of two days earlier. A boy of barely six- 
teen cannot stand against the moral pressure of a father 
and mother who have always oppressed him any more 
than he can cope physically with a powerful full-grown 
man. True, he may allow himself to be killed rather than 


202 The Way of All Flesh 


yield, but this is being so morbidly heroic as to come close 
round again to cowardice; for it is little else than suicide, 
which is universally condemned as cowardly. 

On the re-assembling of the school it became apparent 
that something had gone wrong. Dr. Skinner called the 
boys together, and with much pomp excommunicated Mrs. 
Cross and Mrs. Jones, by declaring their shops to be out 
of bounds. The street in which the “Swan and Bottle” 
stood was also forbidden. The vices of drinking and smok- 
ing, therefore, were clearly aimed at, and before prayers 
Dr. Skinner spoke a few impressive words about the 
abominable sin of using bad language. Emnest’s feelings 
can be imagined. 

Next day at the hour when the daily punishments were 
read out, though there had not yet been time for him to 
have offended, Ernest Pontifex was declared to have in- 
curred every punishment which the school provided for 
evildoers. He was placed on the idle list for the whole 
half year, and on perpetual detentions; his bounds were 
curtailed; he was to attend Junior callings-over; in fact he 
was so hemmed in with punishments upon every side that 
it was hardly possible for him to go outside the school 
gates. This unparalleled list of punishments inflicted on 
the first day of the half year, and intended to last till the 
ensuing Christmas holidays, was not connected with 
any specified offence. It required no great penetration, 
therefore, on the part of the boys to connect Ernest with 
the putting Mrs. Cross’s and Mrs. Jones’s shops out of 
bounds. 

Great indeed was the indignation about Mrs. Cross who, 
it was known, remembered Dr. Skinner himself as a small 
boy only just got into jackets, and had doubtless let him 
have many a sausage and mashed potatoes upon deferred 
payment. The head boys assembled in conclave to con- 
sider what steps should be taken, but hardly had they 
done so before Ernest knocked timidly at the head-room 
door and took the bull by the horns by explaining the 


The Way of All Flesh 203 


facts as far as he could bring himself to do so. He made 
a clean breast of everything except about the school list 
and the remarks he had made about each boy’s character. 
This infamy was more than he could own to, and he kept 
his counsel concerning it. Fortunately he was safe in 
doing so, for Dr. Skinner, pedant and more than pedant 
though he was, had still just sense enough to turn on 
Theobald in the matter of the school list. Whether he 
resented being told that he did not know the characters 
of his own boys, or whether he dreaded a scandal about 
the school I know not, but when Theobald had handed him 
the list, over which he had expended so much pains, Dr. 
Skinner had cut him uncommonly short, and had then and 
there, with more suavity than was usual with him, com- 
mitted it to the flames before Theobald’s own eyes. 

Ernest got off with the head boys easier than he ex- 
pected. It was admitted that the offence, heinous though 
it was, had been committed under extenuating circum- 
stances; the frankness with which the culprit had confessed 
all, his evidently unfeigned remorse, and the fury with 
which Dr. Skinner was pursuing him tended to bring about 
a reaction in his favour, as though he had been more 
sinned against than sinning. 

As the half year wore on his spirits gradually revived, 
and when attacked by one of his fits of self-abasement 
he was in some degree consoled by having found out that 
even his father and mother, whom he had supposed so 
immaculate, were no better than they should be. About 
the fifth of November it was a school custom to meet on 
a certain common not far from Roughborough and burn 
somebody in efhgy, this being the compromise arrived at 
in the matter of fireworks and Guy Fawkes festivities. 
This year it was decided that Pontifex’s governor should 
be the victim, and Ernest though a good deal exercised in 
mind as to what he ought to do, in the end saw no sufh- 
cient reason for holding aloof from proceedings which, as 
he justly remarked, could not do his father any harm. 


204 The Way of All Flesh 


It so happened that the bishop had held a confirmation 
at the school on the fifth of November. Dr. Skinner had 
not quite liked the selection of this day, but the bishop 
was pressed by many engagements, and had been com- 
pelled to make the arrangement as it then stood. Ernest 
was among those who had to be confirmed, and was deeply 
impressed with the solemn importance of the ceremony. 
When he felt the huge old bishop drawing down upon 
him as he knelt in chapel he could hardly breathe, and 
when the apparition paused before him and laid its hands 
upon his head he was frightened almost out of his wits. 
He felt that he had arrived at one of the great turning 
points of his life, and that the Ernest of the future could 
resemble only very faintly the Ernest of the past. 

This happened at about noon, but by the one o’clock 
dinner-hour the effect of the confirmation had worn off, 
and he saw no reason why he should forego his annual 
amusement with the bonfire; so he went with the others 
and was very valiant till the image was actually pro- 
duced and was about to be burnt; then he felt a little 
frightened. It was a poor thing enough, made of paper, 
calico and straw, but they had christened it The Rev. 
Theobald Pontifex, and he had a revulsion of feeling as he 
saw it being carried towards the bonfire. Still he held his 
ground, and in a few minutes when all was over felt none 
the worse for having assisted at a ceremony which, after 
all, was prompted by a boyish love of mischief rather than 
by rancour. 

I should say that Ernest had written to his father, and 
told him of the unprecedented way in which he was being 
treated; he even ventured to suggest that Theobald should 
interfere for his protection and reminded him how the 
story had been got out of him, but Theobald had had 
enough of Dr. Skinner for the present; the burning of 
the school list had been a rebuff which did not encourage 
him to meddle a second time in the internal economics of 
Roughborough. He therefore replied that he must either 


The Way of All Flesh 205 


remove Ernest from Roughborough altogether, which 
would for many reasons be undesirable, or trust to the 
discretion of the head master as regards the treatment 
he might think best for any of his pupils. Ernest said no 
more; he still felt that it was so discreditable to him to have 
allowed any confession to be wrung from him, that he 
could not press the promised amnesty for himself. 

It was during the “Mother Cross row,” as it was long 
styled among the boys, that a remarkable phenomenon 
was witnessed at Roughborough. I mean that of the head 
boys under certain conditions doing errands for their 
juniors. The head boys had no bounds and could go to 
Mrs. Cross’s whenever they liked; they actually, there- 
fore, made themselves go-betweens, and would get anything 
from either Mrs. Cross’s or Mrs. Jones’s for any boy, no 
matter how low in the school, between the hours of a 
quarter to nine and nine in the morning, and a quarter to 
six and six in the afternoon. By degrees, however, the 
boys grew bolder, and the shops, though not openly de- 
clared in bounds again, were tacitly allowed to be so. 


CHAPTER XLIV 


I May spare the reader more details about my hero’s school 
days. He rose, always in spite of himself, into the Doctor’s 
form, and for the last two years or so of his time was 
among the prepostors, though.he never rose into the upper 
half of them. He did little, and I think the Doctor rather 
gave him up as a boy whom he had better leave to himself, 
for he rarely made him construe, and he used to send in 
his exercises or not, pretty much as he liked. His tacit, 
unconscious obstinacy had in time effected more even than 
a few bold sallies in the first instance would have done. To 
the end of his career his position inter pares was what it had 
been at the beginning, namely, among the upper part of the 
less reputable class—whether of seniors or juniors—rather 
than among the lower part of the more respectable. 


206 The Way of All Flesh 


Only once in the whole course of his school life did 
he get praise from Dr. Skinner for any excercise, and this 
he has treasured as the best example of guarded approval 
which he has ever seen. He had had to write a copy of 
Alcaics on ‘The dogs of the monks of St. Bernard,” and 
when the exercise was returned to him found the Doctor 
had written on it: “‘In this copy of Alcaics—which is still 
excessively bad—lI fancy that I can discern some faint 
symptoms of improvement.” Ernest says that if the exer- 
cise was any better than usual it must have been by a 
fluke, for he is sure that he always liked dogs, especially 
St. Bernard dogs, far too much to take any pleasure in 
writing Alcaics about them. 

‘As I look back upon it,” he said to me but the other 
day, with a hearty laugh, “‘I respect myself more for hav- 
ing never once got the best mark for an exercise than I 
should do if I had got it every time it could be got. | 
am glad nothing could make me do Latin and Greek verses; 
I am glad Skinner could never get any moral influence over 
me; I am glad I was idle at school, and I am glad my father 
overtasked me as a boy—otherwise, likely enough I should 
have acquiesced in the swindle, and might have written 
as good a copy of Alcaics about the dogs of the monks 
of St. Bernard as my neighbours, and yet I don’t know, 
for I remember there was another boy, who sent in a Latin 
copy of some sort, but for his own pleasure he wrote the 
following— 

The dogs of the monks of St. Bernard go 
To pick little children out of the snow, 
And around their necks is the cordial gin 


Tied with a little bit of bob-bin. 


I should like to have written that, and I did try, but I 
couldn’t. I didn’t quite like the last line, and tried to mend 
it, but I couldn’t.” 

I fancied I could see traces of bitterness against the 
instructors of his youth in Ernest’s manner, and said some- 
thing to this effect. 


The Way of All Flesh 207 


“Oh, no,” he replied, still laughing, “‘no more than St. 
Anthony felt towards the devils who had tempted him, 
when he met some of them casually a hundred or a couple 
of hundred years afterwards. Of course he knew they 
were devils, but that was all right enough; there must be 
devils. St. Anthony probably liked these devils better 
than most others, and for old acquaintance sake showed 
them as much indulgence as was compatible with deco- 
rum. 

“Besides, you know,” he added, “‘St. Anthony tempted 
the devils quite as much as they tempted him; for his 
peculiar sanctity was a greater temptation to tempt him 
than they could stand. Strictly speaking, it was the devils 
who were the more to be pitied, for they were led up by 
St. Anthony to be tempted and fell, whereas St. Anthony 
did not fall. I believe I was a disagreeable and unin- 
telligible boy, and if ever I meet Skinner there is no one 
whom I would shake hands with, or do a good turn to 
more readily.” 

At home things went on rather better; the Ellen and 
Mother Cross rows sank slowly down upon the horizon, 
and even at home he had quieter times now that he had 
become a prepostor. Nevertheless the watchful eye and 
protecting hand were still ever over him to guard his com- 
ings in and his goings out, and to spy out all his ways. Is 
it wonderful that the boy, though always trying to keep up 
appearances as though he were cheerful and contented— 
and at times actually being so—wore often an anxious, 
jaded look when he thought none were looking, which told 
of an almost incessant conflict within? 

Doubtless Theobald saw these looks and knew how to 
interpret them, but it was his profession to know how to 
shut his eyes to things that were inconvenient—no clergy- 
man could keep his benefice for a month if he could not 
do this; besides he had allowed himself for so many years 
to say things he ought not to have said, and not to say the 
things he ought to have said, that he was little likely to 


208 The Way of All Flesh 


see anything that he thought it more convenient not to see 
unless he was made to do so. 

It was not much that was wanted. To make no mys- 
teries where Nature has made none, to bring his con- 
science under something like reasonable control, to give 
Ernest his head a little more, to ask fewer questions, and 
to give him pocket money with a desire that it should be 
spent upon menus plaisirs.... 

“*Call that not much indeed,”’ laughed Ernest, as I read 
him what I have just written. ‘“‘Why it is the whole duty 
of a father, but it is the mystery-making which is the 
worst evil. If people would dare to speak to one another 
unreservedly, there would be a good deal less sorrow in 
the world a hundred years hence.” 

To return, however, to Roughborough. On the day of 
his leaving, when he was sent for into the library to be 
shaken hands with, he was surprised to feel that, though 
assuredly glad to leave, he did not do so with any especial 
grudge against the Doctor rankling in his breast. He had 
come to the end of it all, and was still alive, nor, take it 
all around, more seriously amiss than other people. Dr. 
Skinner received him graciously, and was even frolicsome 
after his own heavy fashion. Young people are almost 
always placable, and Ernest felt as he went away that 
another such interview would not only have wiped off all 
old scores, but have brought him round into the ranks of 
the Doctor’s admirers and supporters—among whom it is 
only fair to say that the greater number of the more 
promising boys were found. 

Just before saying good-bye the Doctor actually took 
down a volume from those shelves which had seemed so 
awful six years previously, and gave it to him after 
having written his name in it, and the words tA/as Kal 
evvolas yap, which I believe means ‘‘with all kind 
wishes from the donor.”’ The book was one written in Latin 
by a German—Schomann: “Dé comitiis Atheniensibus”— 
not exactly light and cheerful reading, but Ernest felt it 


The Way of All Flesh 209 


was high time he got to understand the Athenian constitu- 
tion and manner of voting; he had got them up a great 
many times already, but had forgotten them as fast as he 
had learned them; now, however, that the Doctor had 
given him this book, he would master the subject once for 
all. How strange it was! He wanted to remember these 
things very badly; he knew he did, but he could never re- 
tain them; in spite of himself they no sooner fell upon his 
mind than they fell off it again, he had such a dreadful 
memory; whereas, if anyone played him a piece of music 
and told him where it came from, he never forgot that, 
though he made no effort to retain it, and was not even 
conscious of trying to remember it at all. His mind must 
be badly formed and he was no good. 

Having still a short time to spare, he got the keys of 
St. Michael’s church and went to have a farewell practice 
upon the organ, which he could now play fairly well. He 
walked up and down the aisle for a while in a meditative 
mood, and then, settling down to the organ, played “They 
loathed to drink of the river’ about six times over, after 
which he felt more composed and happier; then, tearing 
himself away from the instrument he loved so well, he hur- 
ried to the station. 

As the train drew out he looked down from a high em- 
bankment on to the little house his aunt had taken, and 
where it might be said she had died through her desire 
to do him a kindness. There were the two well-known bow 
windows, out of which he had often stepped to run across 
the lawn into the workshop. He reproached himself with 
the little gratitude he had shown towards this kind lady— 
the only one of his relations whom he had ever felt as 
though he could have taken into his confidence. Dearly 
as he loved her memory, he was glad she had not known 
the scrapes he had got into since she died; perhaps she 
might not have forgiven them—and how awful that would 
have been! But then, if she had lived, perhaps many of 
his ills would have been spared him. As he mused thus he 


210 The Way of All Flesh 


grew sad again. Where, where, he asked himself, was it 
all to end? Was it to be always sin, shame and sorrow 
in the future, as it had been in the past, and the ever- 
watchful eye and protecting hand of his father laying bur- 
dens on him greater than he could bear—or was he, too, 
some day or another to come to feel that he was fairly well 
and happy? 

There was a gray mist across the sun, so that the eye 
could bear its light, and Ernest, while musing as above, 
was looking right into the middle of the sun himself, as 
into the face of one whom he knew and was fond of. At 
first his face was grave, but kindly, as of a tired man who 
feels that a long task is over; but in a few seconds the 
more humorous side of his misfortunes presented itself to 
him, and he smiled half reproachfully, half merrily, as 
thinking how little all that had happened to him really 
mattered, and how small were his hardships as compared 
with those of most people. Still looking into the eye of 
the sun and smiling dreamily, he thought how he had 
helped to burn his father in efligy, and his look grew mer- 
rier, till at last he broke out into a laugh. Exactly at 
this moment the light veil of cloud parted from the sun, 
and he was brought to terra firma by the breaking forth 
of the sunshine. On this he became aware that he was 
being watched attentively by a fellow-traveller opposite to 
him, an elderly gentleman with a large head and iron-grey 
hair. 

‘““My young friend,” said he, good-naturedly, “you 
really must not carry on conversations with people in the 
sun, while you are in a public railway carriage.” 

The old gentleman said not another word, but unfolded 
his Times and began to read it. As for Ernest, he blushed 
crimson. The pair did not speak during the rest of the 
time they were in the carriage, but they eyed each other 
from time to time, so that the face of each was impressed 
on the recollection of the other. 


The Way of All Flesh Q1t 


CHAPTER, XLV 


SoME people say that their school days were the happiest 
of their lives. They may be right, but I always look with 
suspicion upon those whom I hear saying this. It is hard 
enough to know whether one is happy or unhappy now, 
and still harder to compare the relative happiness or un- 
happiness of different times of one’s life; the utmost that 
can be said is that we are fairly happy so long as we are 
not distinctly aware of being miserable. As I was talking 
with Ernest one day not so long since about this, he said he 
was so happy now that he was sure he had never been 
happier, and did not wish to be so, but that Cambridge 
was the first place where he had ever been consciously and 
continuously happy. 

How can any boy fail to feel an ecstasy of pleasure on 
first finding himself in rooms which he knows for the 
next few years are to be his castle? Here he will not be 
compelled to turn out of the most comfortable place as 
soon as he has ensconced himself in it because papa or 
mamma happens to come into the room, and he should 
give it up to them. The most cosy chair here is for him- 
self, there is no one even to share the room with him, or 
to interfere with his doing as he likes in 1t—smoking in- 
cluded. Why, if such a room looked out both back and 
front on to a blank dead wall it would still be a paradise; 
how much more then when the view is of some quiet 
grassy court or cloister or garden, as from the windows of 
the greater number of rooms at Oxford and Cambridge. 

Theobald, as an old fellow and tutor of Emmanuel—at 
which college he had entered Ernest—was able to obtain 
from the present tutor a certain preference in the choice 
of rooms; Ernest’s, therefore, were very pleasant ones, 
looking out upon the grassy court that is bounded by the 
Fellows’ gardens. | 

Theobald accompanied him to Cambridge, and was at 
his best while doing so. He liked the jaunt, and even 


212 The Way of All Flesh 


he was not without a certain feeling of pride in having a 
full-blown son at the University. Some of the reflected 
rays of this splendour were allowed to fall upon Ernest 
himself. Theobald said he was ‘“‘willing to hope’’—this 
was one of his tags—that his son would turn over a new 
leaf now that he had left school, and for his own part he 
was “‘only too ready”—this was another tag—to let by- 
gones by bygones. | 

Ermest, not yet having his name on the books, was able 
to dine with his father at the Fellows’ table of one of the 
other colleges on the invitation of an old friend of Theo- 
bald’s; he there made acquaintance with sundry of the 
good things of this life, the very names of which were new 
to him, and felt as he ate them that he was now indeed 
receiving a liberal education. When at length the time 
came for him to go to Emmanuel, where he was to sleep 
in his new rooms, his father came with him to the gates 
and saw him safe into college; a few minutes more and 
he found himself alone in a room for which he had a latch- 
key. 

From this time he dated many days which, if not quite 
unclouded, were upon the whole very happy ones. I need 
not, however, describe them, as the life of a quiet, steady- 
going undergraduate has been told in a score of novels bet- 
ter than I can tell it. Some of Ernest’s schoolfellows came 
up to Cambridge at the same time as himself, and with 
these he continued on friendly terms during the whole of 
his college career. Other schoolfellows were only a year 
or two his seniors; these called on him, and he thus made 
a sufficiently favourable entrée into college life. A straight- 
forwardness of character that was stamped upon his face, 
a love of humour, and a temper which was more easily 

appeased than ruffed made up for some awkwardness and 
want of savoir faire. He soon became a not unpopular 
member of the best set of his year, and though neither 
capable of becoming, nor aspiring to become, a leader, was 
admitted by the leaders as among their nearer hangers-on. 


The Way of All Flesh 213 


Of ambition he had at that time not one particle; great- 
ness, or indeed superiority of any kind, seemed so far off 
and incomprehensible to him that the idea of connecting it 
with himself never crossed his mind. If he could escape the 
notice of all those with whom he did not feel himself en 
rapport, he conceived that he had triumphed sufficiently. 
He did not care about taking a good degree, except that 
it must be good enough to keep his father and mother 
quiet. He did not dream of being able to get a fellow- 
ship; if he had, he would have tried hard to do so, for 
he became so fond of Cambridge that he could not bear 
the thought of having to leave it; the briefness indeed of 
the season during which his present happiness was to last 
was almost the only thing that now seriously troubled him. 

Having less to attend to in the matter of growing, and 
having got his head more free, he took to reading fairly 
well—not because he liked it, but because he was told he 
ought to do so, and his natural instinct, like that of all 
very young men who are good for anything, was to do as 
those in authority told him. The intention at Battersby 
was (for Dr. Skinner had said that Ernest could never get 
a fellowship) that he should take a sufficiently good degree 
to be able to get a tutorship or mastership in some school 
preparatory to taking orders. When he was twenty-one 
years old his money was to come into his own hands, and 
the best thing he could do with it would be to buy the next 
presentation to a living, the rector of which was now old, 
and live on his mastership or tutorship till the living fell in. 
He could buy a very good living for the sum which his 
grandfather's legacy now amounted to, for Theobald had 
never had any serious intention of making deductions for 
his son’s maintenance and education, and the money had 
accumulated till it was now about five thousand pounds; he 
had only talked about making deductions in order to stimu- 
late the boy to exertion as far as possible, by making him 
think that this was his only chance of escaping starva- 
tion—or perhaps from pure love of teasing. 


214 The Way of All Flesh 


When Ernest had a living of £600 or £700 a year with 
a house, and not too many parishioners—why, he might 
add to his income by taking pupils, or even keeping 
school, and then, say at thirty, he might marry. It was 
not easy for Theobald to hit on any much more sensible 
plan. He could not get Ernest into business, for he had 
no business connections—besides he did not know what 
business meant; he had no interest, again, at the Bar; 
medicine was a profession which subjected its students to 
ordeals and temptations which these fond parents shrank 
from on behalf of their boy; he would be thrown among com- 
panions and familiarised with details which might sully him, 
and though he might stand, it was ‘“‘only too possible” 


~- that he would fall. Besides, ordination was the road which 


Theobald knew and understood, and indeed the only road 
about which he knew anything at all, so not unnaturally it 
was the one he chose for Ernest. 

The foregoing had been instilled into my hero from 
earliest boyhood, much as it had been instilled into Theo- 
bald himself, and with the same result—the conviction, 
namely, that he was certainly to be a clergyman, but that 
it was a long way off yet, and he supposed it was all right. 
As for the duty of reading hard, and taking as good a 
degree as he could, this was plain enough, so he set him- 
self to work, as I have said, steadily, and to the surprise 
of everyone as well as himself got a college scholarship, of 
no great value, but still a scholarship, in his freshman’s 
term. It is hardly necessary to say that Theobald stuck 
to the whole of this money, believing the pocket-money 
he allowed Ernest to be sufficient for him, and knowing how 
dangerous it was for young men to have money at com- 
mand. I do not suppose it even occurred to him to try 
and remember what he had felt when his father took a like 
course in regard to himself. 

Ernest’s position in this respect was much what it had 
been at school except that things were on a larger scale. 
His tutor’s and cook’s bills were paid for him; his father 


The Way of All Flesh Q15 


sent him his wine; over and above this he had £50 a 
year with which to keep himself in clothes and all other 
expenses; this was about the usual thing at Emmanuel in 
Ernest’s day, though many had much less than this. 
Ernest did as he had done at school—he spent what he 
could, soon after he received his money, he then incurred 
a few modest liabilities, and then lived penuriously till 
next term, when he would immediately pay his debts, and 
start new ones to much the same extent as those which he 
had just got rid of. When he cameinto his £5000 and be- 
came independent of his father, £15 or £20 served to cover 
the whole of his unauthorised expenditure. 

He joined the boat club, and was constant in his attend- 
ance at the boats. He still smoked, but never took more 
wine or beer than was good for him, except perhaps on the 
occasion of a boating supper, but even then he found the 
consequences unpleasant, and soon learned how to keep 
within safe limits. He attended chapel as often as he was 
compelled to do so; he communicated two or three times a 
year, because his tutor told him he ought to; in fact he 
set himself to live soberly and cleanly, as I imagine all 
his instincts prompted him to do, and when he fell—as 
who that is born of woman can help sometimes doing?— 
it was not till after a sharp tussle with a temptation that 
was more than his flesh and blood could stand; then he 
was very penitent and would go a fairly long while with- 
out sinning again; and this was how it had always been 
with him since he had arrived at years of indiscretion. 

Even to the end of his career at Cambridge he was not 
aware that he had it in him to do anything, but others 
had begun to see that he was not wanting in ability and 
sometimes told him so. He did not believe it; indeed he 
knew very well that if they thought him clever they were 
being taken in, but it pleased him to have been able to 
take them in, and he tried to do so still further; he was 
therefore a good deal on the lookout for cants that he could 
catch and apply in season, and might have done himself 


216 The Way of All Flesh 


some mischief thus if he had not been ready to throw over 
any cant as soon as he had come across another more 
nearly to his fancy; his friends used to say that when he 
rose he flew like a snipe, darting several times in various 
directions before he settled down to a steady, straight 
flight, but when he had once got into this he would keep 
to it. 


CHAPTER XLVI 


WHEN he was in his third year a magazine was founded at 
Cambridge, the contributions to which were exclusively by 
undergraduates. Ernest sent in an essay upon the Greek 
Drama, which he has declined to let me reproduce here 
without his being allowed to re-edit it. I have therefore 
been unable to give it in its original form, but when pruned 
of its redundancies (and this is all that has been done to 
it) it runs as follows— 


**T shall not attempt within the limits at my disposal to 
make a résumé of the rise and progress of the Greek drama, 
but will confine myself to considering whether the reputa- 
tion enjoyed by the three chief Greek tragedians, Aéschy- - 
lus, Sophocles and Euripides, is one that will be permanent, 
or whether they will one day be held to have been over- 
rated. é 

“Why, I ask myself, do I see much that I can easily 
admire in Homer, Thucydides, Herodotus, Demosthenes, 
Aristophanes, Theocritus, parts of Lucretius, Horace’s 
satires and epistles, to say nothing of other ancient writ- 
ers, and yet find myself at once repelled by even those 
works of A’schylus, Sophocles and Euripides which are 
most generally admired? 

“With the first-named writers I am in the hands of men 
who feel, if not as I do, still as I can understand their feel- 
ing, and as I am interested to see that they should have 
felt; with the second I have so little sympathy that I can- 
not understand how anyone can ever have taken any inter- 


The Way of All Flesh Q17 


est in them whatever. Their highest flights to me are dull, 
pompous and artificial productions, which, if they were to 
appear now for the first time, would, I should think, either 
fall dead or be severely handled by the critics. I wish to 
know whether it is I who am in fault in this matter, or 
whether part of the blame may not rest with the tragedians 
themselves. 

“How far, I wonder, did the Athenians genuinely like 
these poets, and how far was the applause which was lav- 
ished upon them due to fashion or affectation? How far, in 
fact, did admiration for the orthodox tragedians take that 
place among the Athenians which going to church does 
among ourselves? 

“This is a venturesome question considering the ver- 
dict now generally given for over two thousand years, nor 
should I have permitted myself to ask it if it had not 
been suggested to me by one whose reputation stands 
as high, and has been sanctioned for as long time as 
those of the tragedians themselves, I mean by Aristopha- 
nes. 

“Numbers, weight of authority, and time, have con- 
spired to place Aristophanes on as high a literary pinnacle 
as any ancient writer, with the exception perhaps of Homer, 
but he makes no secret of heartily hating Euripides and 
Sophocles, and I strongly suspect only praises A‘schylus 
that he may run down the other two with greater impunity. 
For after all there is no such difference between Aéschylus 
and his successors as will render the former very good and 
the latter very bad; and the thrusts at A¢schylus which 
Aristophanes puts into the mouth of Euripides go home 
too well to have been written by an admirer. 

‘“‘It may be observed that while Euripides accuses 
ZEschylus of being ‘pomp-bundle-worded,’ which I suppose 
means bombastic and given to rodomontade, A'schylus re- 
torts on Euripides that he is a “gossip gleaner, a describer 
of beggars, and a rag-stitcher,’ from which it may be in- 
ferred that he was truer to the life of his own times than 


218 The Way of All Flesh 


/Eschylus was. It happens, however, that a faithful ren- 
dering of contemporary life is the very quality which gives 
its most permanent interest to any work of fiction, whether 
in literature or painting, and it is a not unnatural conse- 
quence that while only seven plays by A‘schylus, and the 
same number by Sophocles, have come down to us, we have 
no fewer than nineteen by Euripides. 

“This, however, is a digression; the question before us 
is whether Aristophanes really liked A‘schylus or only pre- 
tended todo so. It must be remembered that the claims of 
Aéschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, to the foremost place 
amongst tragedians were held to be as incontrovertible as 
those of Dante, Petratch, Tasso and Ariosto to be the 
greatest of Italian poets, are held among the Italians of 
to-day. If we can fancy some witty, genial writer, we will 
say in Florence, finding himself bored by all the poets I 
have named, we can yet believe he would be unwilling to 
admit that he disliked them without exception. He would 
prefer to think he could see something at any rate in Dante, 
whom he could idealise more easily, inasmuch as he was 
more remote; in order to carry his countrymen the farther 
with him, he would endeavour to meet them more than was 
consistent with his own instincts. Without some such 
palliation as admiration for one, at any rate, of the trage- 
dians, it would be almost as dangerous for Aristophanes to 
attack them as it would be for an Englishman now to say 
that he did not think very much of the Elizabethan dram- 
atists. Yet which of us in his heart likes any of the Eliza- 
bethan dramatists except Shakespeare? Are they in reality 
anything else than literary Struldbrugs? 

“‘T conclude upon the whole that Aristophanes did not 
like any of the tragedians; yet no one will deny that this 
keen, witty, outspoken writer was as good a judge of lit- 
erary value, and as able to see any beauties that the tragic 
dramas contained as nine-tenths, at any rate, of ourselves. 
He had, moreover, the advantage of thoroughly under- 
standing the standpoint from which the tragedians ex- 


The Way of All Flesh 219 


pected their work to be judged, and what was his conclu- 
sion? Briefly it was little else than this, that they were a 
fraud or something very like it. For my own part I cor- 
dially agree with him. I am free to confess that with the 
exception perhaps of some of the Psalms of David I know 
no writings which seem so little to deserve their reputation. 
I do not know that I should particularly mind my sisters 
reading them, but I will take good care never to read them 
myself.” 


This last bit about the Psalms was awful, and there was 
a great fight with the editor as to whether or not it should 
be allowed to stand. Ernest himself was frightened at it, 
but he had once heard someone say that the Psalms were 
many of them very poor, and on looking at them more 
closely, after he had been told this, he found that there 
could hardly be two opinions on the subject. So he caught 
up the remark and reproduced it as his own, concluding 
that these psalms had probably never been written by 
David at all, but had got in among the others by mistake. 

The essay, perhaps on account of the passage about the 
Psalms, created quite a sensation, and on the whole was 
well received. Ernest’s friends praised it more highly than 
it deserved, and he was himself very proud of it, but he 
dared not show it at Battersby. He knew also that he 
was now at the end of his tether; this was his one idea 
(I feel sure he had caught more than half of it from other 
people), and now he had not another thing left to write 
about. He found himself cursed with a small reputation 
which seemed to him much bigger than it was, and a con- 
sciousness that he could never keep it up. Before many 
days were over he felt his unfortunate essay to be a white 
elephant to him, which he must feed by hurrying into all 
sorts of frantic attempts to cap his triumph, and, as may 
be imagined, these attempts were failures. 

He did not understand that if he waited and listened 
and observed, another idea of some kind would probably 


220 The Way of All Flesh 


occur to him some day, and that the development of this 
would in its turn suggest still further ones. He did not 
yet know that the very worst way of getting hold of ideas 
is to go hunting expressly after them. The way to get 
them is to study something of which one is fond, and to 
note down whatever crosses one’s mind in reference to it, 
either during study or relaxation, in a little notebook kept 
always in the waistcoat pocket. Ernest has come to know 
all about this now, but it took him a long time to find it 
out, for this is not the kind of thing that is taught at 
schools and universities. 

Nor yet did he know that ideas, no less than the living 
beings in whose minds they arise, must be begotten by par- 
ents not very unlike themselves, the most original still 
differing but slightly from the parents that have given 
rise to them. Life is like a fugue, everything must grow 
out of the subject and there must be nothing new. Nor, 
again, did he see how hard it is to say where one idea ends 
and another begins, nor yet how closely this is paralleled 
in the difficulty of saying where a life begins or ends, or an 
action or indeed anything, there being an unity in spite of 
infinite multitude, and an infinite multitude in spite of 
unity. He thought that ideas came into clever people’s 
heads by a kind of spontaneous germination, without par- 
entage in the thoughts of others or the course of observa- 
tion; for as yet he believed in genius, of which he well 
knew that he had none, if it was the fine frenzied thing he 
thought it was. 

Not very long before this he had come of age, and Theo- 
bald had handed him over his money, which amounted now 
to £5000; it was invested to bring in § per cent. and gave 
him therefore an income of £250 a year. He did not, how- 
ever, realise the fact (he could realise nothing so foreign 
to his experience) that he was independent of his father 
till a long time afterwards; nor did Theebald make any 
difference in his manner towards him. So strong was the 
hold which habit and association held over both father and 


The Way of All Flesh 291 


son, that the one considered he had as good a right as 
ever to dictate, and the other that he had as little right 
as ever to gainsay. 

During his last year at Cambridge he overworked him- 
self through this very blind deference to his father’s wishes, 
for there was no reason why he should take more than a 
poll degree except that his father laid such stress upon his 
taking honours. He became so ill, indeed, that it was 
doubtful how far he would be able to go in for his degree at 
all; but he managed to do so, and when the list came out 
was found to be placed higher than either he or anyone else 
expected, being among the first three or four senior op- | 
times, and a few weeks later, in the lower half of the second 
class of the Classical Tripos. Ill as he was when he got 
home, Theobald made him go over all the examination 
papers with him, and in fact reproduce as nearly as possible 
the replies that he had sent in. So little kick had he in 
him, and so deep was the groove into which he had got, that 
while at home he spent several hours a day in continuing 
his classical and mathematical studies as though he had 
not yet taken his degree. 


CHAPTER XLVII 


ERNEST returned to Cambridge for the May term of 1858, 
on the plea of reading for ordination, with which he was 
now face to face, and much nearer than he liked. Up to 
this time, though not religiously inclined, he had never 
doubted the truth of anything that had been told him 
about Christianity. He had never seen anyone who 
doubted, nor read anything that raised a suspicion in his 
mind as to the historical character of the miracles recorded 
in the Old and New Testaments. 

It must be remembered that the year 1858 was the last 
of a term during which the peace of the Church of England 
was singularly unbroken. Between 1844, when “Vestiges 
of Creation” appeared, and 1859, when “‘Essays and Re- 


222 The Way of All Flesh 


views” marked the commencement of that storm which 
raged until many years afterwards, there was not a single 
book published in England that caused serious commotion 
within the bosom of the Church. Perhaps Buckle’s “ His- 
tory of Civilisation” and Mill’s “‘Liberty”’ were the most 
alarming, but they neither of them reached the substratum 
of the reading public, and Ernest and his friends were 
ignorant of their very existence. The Evangelical move- 
ment, with the exception to which I shall revert presently, 
had become almost a matter of ancient history. Tracta- 
rianism had subsided into a tenth day’s wonder; it was at 
work, but it was not noisy. The ‘Vestiges” were for- 
gotten before Ernest went up to Cambridge; The Catholic 
aggression scare had lost its terrors; Ritualism was still 
unknown by the general provincial public, and the Gor- 
ham and Hampden controversies were defunct some years 
since; Dissent was not spreading; the Crimean war was 
the one engrossing subject, to be followed by the Indian 
Mutiny and the Franco-Austrian war. These great events 
turned men’s minds from speculative subjects, and there 
was no enemy to the faith which could arouse even a lan- 
guid interest. Atnotime probably since the beginning of the 
century could an ordinary observer have detected less sign 
of coming disturbance than at that of which I am writing. 

I need hardly say that the calm was only on the surface. 
Older men, who knew more than undergraduates were 
likely to do, must have seen that the wave of scepticism 
which had already broken over Germany was setting to- 
wards our own shores, nor was it long, indeed, before it 
reached them. Ernest had hardly been ordained before 
three works in quick succession arrested the attention even 
of those who paid least heed to theological controversy. 
“I mean “‘Essays and Reviews,” Charles Darwin’s ‘Origin 
of Species,”” and Bishop Colenso’s “‘ Criticisms on the Pen- 
~tateuch.”’ 

This, however, is a digression; I must revert to the one 
phase of spiritual activity which had any life in it during 


The Way of All Flesh 223 


the time Ernest was at Cambridge, that is to say, to the 
remains of the Evangelical awakening of more than a 
generation earlier, which was connected with the name of 
Simeon. | 

There were still a good many Simeonites, or as they 
were more briefly called “Sims,” in Ernest’s time. Every 
college contained some of them, but their headquarters 
were at Caius, whither they were attracted by Mr. Clayton 
who was at that time senior tutor, and among the sizars of 
St. John’s. 

Behind the then chapel of this last-named college, there 
was a “labyrinth” (this was the name it bore) of dingy, 
tumble-down rooms, tenanted exclusively by the poorest 
undergraduates, who were dependent upon sizarships and 
scholarships for the means of taking their degrees. To 
many, even at St. John’s, the existence and whereabouts 
of the labyrinth in which the sizars chiefly lived was un- 
known; some men in Ernest’s time, who had rooms in the 
first court, had never found their way through the sinuous 
passage which led to it. 

In the labyrinth there dwelt men of all ages, from mere 
lads to grey-haired old men who had entered late in life. 
They were rarely seen except in hall or chapel or at lec- 
ture, where their manners of feeding, praying and study- 
ing, were considered alike objectionable; no one knew 
whence they came, whither they went, nor what they did, 
for they never showed at cricket or the boats; they were a 
gloomy, seedy-looking confrérie, who had as little to glory 
in in clothes and manners as in the flesh itself. 

Ernest and his friends used to consider themselves 
marvels of economy for getting on with so little money, but 
the greater number of dwellers in the labyrinth would have 
considered one-half of their expenditure to be an exceed- 
ing measure of affluence, and so doubtless any domestic 
tyranny which had been experienced by Ernest was a 
small thing to what the average Johnian sizar had had to 
put up with. 


224. The Way of All Flesh 


A few would at once emerge on its being found after 
their first examination that they were likely to be orna- 
ments to the college; these would win valuable scholar- 
ships that enabled them to live in some degree of com- 
fort, and would amalgamate with the more studious of 
those who were in a better social position, but even these, 
with few exceptions, were long in shaking off the uncouth- 
ness they brought with them to the University, nor would 
their origin cease to be easily recognisable till they had 
become dons and tutors. I have seen some of these men 
attain high position in the world of politics or science, 
and yet still retain a look of labyrinth and Johnian sizar- 
ship. 

Unprepossessing then, in feature, gait and manners, un- 
kempt and ill-dressed beyond what can be easily described, 
these poor fellows formed a class apart, whose thoughts 
and ways were not as the thoughts and ways of Ernest and 
his friends, and it was among them that Simeonism chiefly 
flourished. 

Destined most of them for the Church (for in those days 
‘holy orders’ were seldom heard of), the Simeonites held 
themselves to have received a very loud call to the ministry, 
and were ready to pinch themselves for years so as to pre- 
pare for it by the necessary theological courses. To most 
of them the fact of becoming clergymen would be the 
entrée into a social position from which they were at pres- 
ent kept out by barriers they well knew to be impassable; 
ordination, therefore, opened fields for ambition which 
made it the central point in their thoughts, rather than as 
with Ernest, something which he supposed would have 
to be done some day, but about which, as about dying, 
he hoped there was no need to trouble himself as yet. 

By way of preparing themselves more completely they 
would have meetings in one another’s rooms for tea and 
prayer and other spiritual exercises. Placing themselves 
under the guidance of a few well-known tutors they would 
teach in Sunday Schools, and be instant, in season and out 


The Way of All Flesh G25 


of season, in imparting spiritual instruction to all whom 
they could persuade to listen to them. 

But the soil of the more prosperous undergraduates was 
not suitable for the seed they tried to sow. The small 
pieties with which they larded their discourse, if chance 
threw them into the company of one whom they considered 
worldly, caused nothing but aversion in the minds of those 
for whom they were intended. When they distributed 
tracts, dropping them by night into good men’s letter 
boxes while they were asleep, their tracts got burnt, or 
met with even worse contumely; they were themselves also 
treated with the ridicule which they reflected proudly had 
been the lot of true followers of Christ in all ages. Often 
at their prayer meetings was the passage of St. Paul re- 
ferred to in which he bids his Corinthian converts note 
concerning themselves that they were for the most part 
neither well-bred nor intellectual people. They reflected 
with pride that they too had nothing to be proud of in 
these respects, and like St. Paul, gloried in the fact that in 
the flesh they had not much to glory. 

Ernest had several Johnian friends, and came thus to 
hear about the Simeonites and to see some of them, who 
were pointed out to him as they passed through the courts. 
They had a repellant attraction for him; he disliked them, 
but he could not bring himself to leave them alone. On 
one occasion he had gone so far as to parody one of the 
tracts they had sent round in the night, and to get a copy 
dropped into each of the leading Simeonites’ boxes. The 
subject he had taken was ‘‘ Personal Cleanliness.” Clean- 
liness, he said, was next to godliness; he wished to know on 
which side it was to stand, and concluded by exhorting 
Simeonites to a freer use of the tub. I cannot commend my 
hero’s humour in this matter; his tract was not brilliant, 
but I mention the fact as showing that at this time he was 
something of a Saul and took pleasure in persecuting the 
elect, not, as I have said, that he had any hankering after 
scepticism, but because, like the farmers in his father’s 


226 The Way of All Flesh 


village, though he would not stand seeing the Christian 
religion made light of, he was not going to see it taken 
seriously. Ernest’s friends thought his dislike for Simeon- 
ites was due to his being the son of a clergyman who, it 
was known, bullied him; it is more likely, however, that 
it rose from an unconscious sympathy with them, which, 
as in St. Paul’s case, in the end drew him into the ranks of 
those whom he had most despised and hated. 


CHAPTER XLVIII 


Once, recently, when he was down at home after taking 
his degree, his mother had had a short conversation 
with him about his becoming a clergyman, set on 
thereto by Theobald, who shrank from the subject 
himself. This time it was during a turn taken in the 
garden, and not on the sofa—which was reserved for su- 
preme occasions. 

“You know, my dearest boy,” she said to him, “‘that 
papa” (she always called Theobald “‘ papa” when talking 
to Ernest) ““is so anxious you should not go into the Church 
blindly, and without fully realising the difficulties of a 
clergyman’s position. He has considered all of them him- 
self, and has been shown how small they are, when they are 
faced boldly, but he wishes you, too, to feel them as strongly 
and completely as possible before committing yourself to. 
irrevocable vows, so that you may never, never have to 
regret the step you will have taken.” 

This was the first time Ernest had heard that there were 
any difficulties, and he not unnaturally enquired in a vague 
way after their nature. 

“That, my dear boy,” rejoined Christina, “is a ques- 
tion which I am not fitted to enter upon either by nature 
or education. I might easily unsettle your mind without 
being able to settle it again. Oh, no! Such questions are 
far better avoided by women, and, I should have thought, 
by men, but papa wished me to speak to you upon the 


? 


The Way of All Flesh Q07 


subject, so that there might be no mistake hereafter, and 
I have done so. Now, therefore, you know all.” 

The conversation ended here, so far as this subject was 
concerned, and Ernest thought he did know all. His 
mother would not have told him he knew all—not about a 
matter of that sort—unless he actually did know it; well, 
it did not come to very much; he supposed there were 
some difficulties, but his father, who at any rate was an 
excellent scholar and a learned man, was probably quite 
right here, and he need not trouble himself more about them. 
So little impression did the conversation make on him, 
that it was not till long afterwards that, happening to 
remember it, he saw what a piece of sleight of hand had been 
practised upon him. Theobald and Christina, however, 
were satisfied that they had done their duty by opening 
their son’s eyes to the difficulties of assenting to all a 
clergyman must assent to. This was enough; it was a 
matter for rejoicing that, though they had been put so 
fully and candidly before him, he did not find them serious. 
It was not in vain that they had prayed for so many years 
to be made “‘tru/y honest and conscientious.” 

‘And now, my dear,” resumed Christina, after having 
disposed of all the difficulties that might stand in the way 
of Ernest’s becoming a clergyman, “there is another mat- 
ter on which I should like to have a talk with you. It is 
about your sister Charlotte. You know how clever she is, 
and what a dear, kind sister she has been and always will 
be to yourself and Joey. I wish, my dearest Ernest, that 
I saw more chance of her finding a suitable husband than I 
do at Battersby, and I sometimes think you might do more 
than you do to help her.” 

Ernest began to chafe at this, for he had heard it so 
often, but he said nothing. 

“You know, my dear, a brother can do so much for his 
sister if he lays himself out to do it. A mother can do very 
little—indeed, it is hardly a mother’s place to seek out 
young men; it is a brother’s place to find a suitable partner 


928 The Way of All Flesh 


for his sister; all that I can do is to try to make Battersby 
as attractive as possible to any of your friends whom you 
may invite. And in that,” she added, with a little toss 
of her head, “I do not think I have been deficient 
hitherto.” 

Ernest said he had already at different times asked sev- 
eral of his friends. 

“Yes, my dear, but you must admit that they were none 
of them exactly the kind of young man whom Charlotte 
could be expected to take a fancy to. Indeed, I must own 
to having been a little disappointed that you should have 
yourself chosen any of these as your intimate friends.” 

Ernest winced again. 

“You never brought down Figgins when you were at 
Roughborough; now I should have thought Figgins would 
have been just the kind of boy whom you might have asked 
to come and see us.’ 

Figgins had been gone through times out of number 
already. Ernest had hardly known him, and Figgins, 
being nearly three years older than Ernest, had left long 
before he did. Besides, he had not been a nice boy, and 
had made himself unpleasant to Ernest in many ways. 

“Now,” continued his mother, “there’s. Towneley. 
I have heard you speak of Towneley as having rowed with 
you in a boat at Cambridge. I wish, my dear, you would 
cultivate your acquaintance with Towneley, and ask him 
to pay usa visit. The name has an aristocratic sound, and 
I think I have heard you say he is an eldest son.” 

Ernest flushed at the sound of Towneley’s name. 

What had really happened in respect of Ernest’s friends 
was briefly this: His mother liked to get hold of the names 
of the boys and especially of any who were at all intimate 
with her son; the more she heard, the more she wanted 
to know; there was no gorging her to satiety; she was like 
a ravenous young cuckoo being fed upon a grass plot by 
a water wag-tail, she would swallow all that Ernest could 
bring her, and yet be as hungry as before. And she always 


The Way of All Flesh 229 


went to Ernest for her meals rather than to Joey, for 
Joey was either more stupid or more impenetrable—at any 
rate she could pump Ernest much the better of the two. 

From time to time an actual live boy had been thrown 
to her, either by being caught and brought to Battersby, 
or by being asked to meet her if at any time she came to 
Roughborough. She had generally made herself agree- 
able, or fairly agreeable, as long as the boy was present, 
but as soon as she got Ernest to herself again she changed 
her note. Into whatever form she might throw her criti- 
cisms it came always in the end to this, that his friend 
was no good, that Ermest was not much better, and that 
he should have brought her someone else, for this one 
would not do at all. 

The more intimate the boy had been or was supposed to 
be with Ernest the more he was declared to be nought, 
till in the end he had hit upon the plan of saying, con- 
cerning any boy whom he particularly liked, that he was 
not one of his especial chums, and that indeed he hardly 
knew why he had asked him; but he found he only fell on 
Scylla in trying to avoid Charybdis, for though the boy 
was declared to be more successful, it was Ernest who was 
naught for not thinking more highly of him. 

When she had once got hold of a name she never forgot 
it. ““And how is So-and-so?”’ she would exclaim, mention- 
ing some former friend of Ernest’s with whom he had 
either now quarrelled, or who had long since proved to be a 
mere comet and no fixed star at all. How Ernest wished he 
had never mentioned So-and-so’s name, and vowed to him- 
self that he would never talk about his friends in future, 
but in a few hours he would forget and would prattle 
away as imprudently as ever; then his mother would 
pounce noiselessly on his remarks as a barn-owl pounces 
upon a mouse, and would bring them up in a pellet six 
months afterwards when they were no longer in harmony 
with their surroundings. 

Then there was Theobald. If a boy or college friend 


230 The Way of All Flesh 


had been invited to Battersby, Theobald would lay him- 
self out at first to be agreeable. He could do this well 
enough when he liked, and as regards the outside world he 
generally did like. His clerical neighbours, and indeed all 
his neighbours, respected him yearly more and more, and 
would have given Ernest sufficient cause to regret his im- 
prudence if he had dared to hint that he had anything, how- 
ever little, to complain of. ‘Theobald’s mind worked in 
this way: “Now, I know Ernest has told this boy what a 
disagreeable person I am, and I will just show him that I 
am not disagreeable at all, but a good old fellow, a jolly old 
boy, in fact a regular old brick, and that it is Ernest who 
is in fault all through.” 

So he would behave very nicely to the boy at first, and 
the boy would be delighted with him, and side with him 
against Ernest. Of course if Ernest had got the boy to 
come to Battersby he wanted him to enjoy his visit, and 
was therefore pleased that Theobald should behave so well, 
but at the same time he stood so much in need of moral 
support that it was painful to him to see one of his own 
familiar friends go over to the enemy’s camp. For no 
matter how well we may know a thing—how clearly we 
may see a certain patch of colour, for example, as red, it 
shakes us and knocks us about to find another see it, or be 
more than half inclined to see it, as green. 

Theobald had generally begun to get a little impatient 
before the end of the visit, but the impression formed dur- 
ing the earlier part was the one which the visitor had car- 
ried away with him. ‘Theobald never discussed any of 
the boys with Ernest. It was Christina who did this. 
Theobald let them come, because Christina in a quiet, per- 
sistent way, insisted on it; when they did come he behaved, 
as I have said, civilly, but he did not like it, whereas 
Christina did like it very much; she would have had half 
Roughborough and half Cambridge to come and stay at 
Battersby if she could have managed it, and if it could 
not have cost so much money; she liked their coming, so 


The Way of All Flesh 231 


that she might make a new acquaintance, and she liked 
tearing them to pieces and flinging the bits over Ernest as 
soon as she had had enough of them. 

The worst of it was that she had so often proved to be 
right. Boys and young men are violent in their affections, 
but they are seldom very constant; it is not till they get 
older that they really know the kind of friend they want; 
in their earlier essays young men are simply learning to 
judge character. Ernest had been no exception to the 
general rule. His swans had one after the other proved to 
be more or less geese even in his own estimation, and he 
was beginning almost to think that his mother was a better 
judge of character than he was; but I think it may be 
assumed with some certainty that if Ernest had brought 
her a real young swan she would have declared it to be the 
ugliest and worst goose of all that she had yet seen. 

At first he had not suspected that his friends were wanted 
with a view to Charlotte; it was understood that Char- 
lotte and they might perhaps take a fancy for one another; 
and that would be so very nice, would it not? But he did not 
see that there was any deliberate malice in the arrange- 
ment. Now, however, that he had awoke to what it all 
meant, he was less inclined to bring any friend of his to 
Battersby. It seemed to his silly young mind almost dis- 
honest to ask your friend to come and see you when all 
you really meant was, “‘ Please, marry my sister.” It was 
like trying to obtain money under false pretences. If he 
had been fond of Charlotte it might have been another 
matter, but he thought her one of the most disagreeable 
young women in the whole circle of his acquaintance. 

She was supposed to be very clever. All young ladies 
are either very pretty or very clever or very sweet; they 
may take their choice as to which category they will go in 
for, but go in for one of the three they must. It was hope- 
less to try and pass Charlotte off as either pretty or sweet. 
So she became clever as the only remaining alternative. 
Ernest never knew what particular branch of study it was 


282 The Way of All Flesh 


in which she showed her talent, for she could neither play 
nor sing nor draw, but so astute are women that his mother 
and Charlotte really did persuade him into thinking that 
she, Charlotte, had something more akin to true genius 
than any other member of the family. Not one, however, 
of all the friends whom Ernest had been inveigled into 
trying to inveigle had shown the least sign of being so far 
struck with Charlotte’s commanding powers, as to wish to 
make them his own, and this may have had something to 
do with the rapidity and completeness with which Christina 
had dismissed them one after another and had wanted a 
new one. 

And now she wanted Towneley. Ernest had seen this 
coming and had tried to avoid it, for he knew how impos- 
sible it was for him to ask Towneley even if he had wished 
to do so. 

Towneley belonged to one of the most exclusive sets in 
Cambridge, and was perhaps the most popular man among 
the whole number of undergraduates. He was big and very 
handsome—as it seemed to Ernest the handsomest man 
whom he had ever seen or ever could see, for it was im- 
possible to imagine a more lively and agreeable counte- 
nance. He was good at cricket and boating, very good- 
natured, singularly free from conceit, not clever but very 
sensible, and, lastly, his father and mother had been 
drowned by the overturning of a boat when he was only 
two years old and had left him as their only child and heir 
to one of the finest estates in the South of England. For- 
tune every now and then does things handsomely by a man 
all round; Towneley was one of those to whom she had 
taken a fancy, and the universal verdict in this case was 
that she had chosen wisely. 

Ernest had seen Towneley as every one else in the Uni- 
versity (except, of course, dons) had seen him, for he was 
a man of mark, and being very susceptible he had liked 
Towneley even more than most people did, but at the same 
time it never so much as entered his head that he should 


The Way of All Flesh 233 


come to know him. He liked looking at him if he got a 
chance, and was very much ashamed of himself for doing 
so, but there the matter ended. 

By a strange accident, however, during Ernest’s last 
year, when the names of the crews for the scratch fours 
were drawn he had found himself coxswain of a crew, 
among whom was none other than his especial hero Towne- 
ley; the three others were ordinary mortals, but they 
could row fairly well, and the crew on the whole was rather 
a good one. 

Ernest was frightened out of his wits. When, however, 
the two met, he found Towneley no less remarkable for his 
entire want of anything like “‘side,’’ and for his power of 
setting those whom he came across at their ease, than he 
was for outward accomplishments; the only difference he 
found between Towneley and other people was that he was 
so very much easier to get on with. Of course Ernest 
worshipped him more and more. 

The scratch fours being ended the connection between 
the two came to an end, but Towneley never passed Ernest 
thenceforward without a nod and a few good natured 
words. In an evil moment he had mentioned Towneley’s 
name at Battersby, and now what was the result? Here 
was his mother plaguing him to ask Towneley to come 
down to Battersby and marry Charlotte. Why, if he had 
thought there was the remotest chance of Towneley’s 
marrying Charlotte he would have gone down on his knees 
to him and told him what an odious young woman she was, 
and implored him to save. himself while there was yet 
time. 

But Ernest had not prayed to be made “truly honest 
and conscientious” for as many years as Christina had. He 
tried to conceal what he felt and thought as well as he 
could, and led the conversation back to the difficulties 
which a clergyman might feel to stand in the way of his 
being ordained—not because he had any misgivings, but 
as a diversion. His mother, however, thought she had 


234 The Way of All Flesh 


settled all that, and he got no more out of her. Soon after- 
wards he found the means of escaping, and was not slow 
to avail himself of them. 


CHAPTER XLIX 


On his return to Cambridge in the May term of 1858, 
Ernest and a few other friends who were also intended for 
orders came to the conclusion that they must now take a 
more serious view of their position. They therefore at- 
tended chapel more regularly than hitherto, and held 
evening meetings of a somewhat furtive character, at 
which they would study the New Testament. They even 
began to commit the Epistles of St. Paul to memory in the 
original Greek. They got up Beveridge on the Thirty- 
nine Articles, and Pearson on the Creed; in their hours of 
recreation they read More’s “Mystery of Godliness,” 
which Ernest thought was charming, and Taylor’s “Holy 
Living and Dying,” which also impressed him deeply, 
through what he thought was the splendour of its language. 
They handed themselves over to the guidance of Dean 
Alford’s notes on the Greek Testament, which made Er- 
nest better understand what was meant by “difficulties,” 
but also made him feel how shallow and impotent were the 
conclusions arrived at by German neologians, with whose 
works, being innocent of German, he was not otherwise 
acquainted. Some of the friends who joined him in these 
pursuits were Johnians, and the meetings were often held 
within the walls of St. John’s. 

I do not know how tidings of these furtive gatherings 
had reached the Simeonites, but they must have come 
round to them in some way, for they had not been con- 
tinued many weeks before a circular was sent to each of the 
young men who attended them, informing them that the 
Rev. Gideon Hawke, a well-known London Evangelical 
preacher, whose sermons were then much talked of, was 
about to visit his young friend Badcock of St. John’s, and 


The Way of All Flesh 235 


would be glad to say a few words to any who might wish 
to hear them, in Badcock’s rooms on a certain evening in 
May. 

Badcock was one of the most notorious of all the Simeon- 
ites. Not only was he ugly, dirty, ill-dressed, bumptious, 
and in every way objectionable, but he was deformed and 
waddled when he walked so that he had won a nickname 
which I can only reproduce by calling it “‘Here’s my back, 
and there’s my back,” because the lower parts of his back 
emphasised themselves demonstratively as though about 
to fly off in different directions like the two extreme notes 
in the chord of the augmented sixth, with every step he 
took. It may be guessed, therefore, that the receipt of the 
circular had for a moment an almost paralysing effect on 
those to whom it was addressed, owing to the astonish- 
ment which it occasioned them. It certainly was a daring 
surprise, but like so many deformed people, Badcock was 
forward and hard to check; he was a pushing fellow to 
whom the present was just the opportunity he wanted for 
carrying war into the enemy’s quarters. 

Ernest and his friends consulted. Moved by the feel- 
ing that as they were now preparing to be clergymen they 
ought not to stand so stiffly on social dignity as hereto- 
fore, and also perhaps by the desire to have a good pri- 
vate view of a preacher who was then much upon the lips 
of men, they decided to accept the invitation. When the 
appointed time came they went with some confusion and 
self-abasement to the rooms of this man, on whom they 
had looked down hitherto as from an immeasurable height, 
and with whom nothing would have made them believe 
a few weeks earlier that they could ever come to be on 
speaking terms. 

Mr. Hawke was a very different-looking person from 
Badcock. He was remarkably handsome, or rather would 
have been but for the thinness of his lips, and a look of too 
great firmness and inflexibility. His features were a good 
deal like those of Leonardo da Vinci; moreover, he was 


236 The Way of All Flesh 


kempt, looked in vigorous health, and was of a ruddy 
countenance. He was extremely courteous in his manner, 
and paid a good deal of attention to Badcock, of whom he 
seemed to think highly. Altogether our young friends were 
taken aback, and inclined to think smaller beer of them- 
selves and larger of Badcock than was agreeable to the 
old Adam who was still alive within them. A few well- 
known “Sims” from St. John’s and other colleges were 
present, but not enough to swamp the Ermest set, as, for 
the sake of brevity, I will call them. 

After a preliminary conversation in which there was 
nothing to offend, the business of the evening began by 
Mr. Hawke’s standing up at one end of the table, and 
saying, ““Let us pray.” The Ernest set did not like this, 
but they could not help themselves, so they knelt down and 
repeated the Lord’s Prayer and a few others after Mr. 
Hawke, who delivered them remarkably well. Then, 
when all had sat down, Mr. Hawke addressed them, speak- 
ing without notes and taking for his text the words, “Saul, 
Saul, why persecutest thou me?” Whether owing to Mr. 
Hawke’s manner, which was impressive, or to his well- 
known reputation for ability, or whether from the fact that 
each one of the Ernest set knew that he had been more or 
less a persecutor of the “Sims” and yet felt instinctively 
that the “‘Sims”’ were after all much more like the early 
Christians than he was himself—at any rate the text, 
familiar though it was, went home to the consciences of 
Ernest and his friends as it had never yet done. If Mr. 
Hawke had stopped here he would have almost said 
enough; as he scanned the faces turned towards him, and 
saw the impression he had made, he was perhaps minded 
to bring his sermon to an end before beginning it, but if 
so, he reconsidered himself and proceeded as follows. 
I give the sermon in full, for it is a typical one, and will 
explain a state of mind which in another generation or 
two will seem to stand sadly in need of explanation. 

““My young friends,” said Mr. Hawke, “‘I am persuaded 


The Way of All Flesh 237 


there is not one of you here who doubts the existence of 
a Personal God. If there were, it is to him assuredly that 
I should first address myself. Should I be mistaken in my 
belief that all here assembled accept the existence of a 
God who is present amongst us though we see him not, 
and whose eye is upon our most secret thoughts, let me 
implore the doubter to confer with me in private before 
we part; [ will then put before him considerations through 
which God has been mercifully pleased to reveal himself 
to me, so far as man can understand him, and which | 
have found bring peace to the minds of others who have 
doubted. 

“‘I assume also that there is none who doubts but that 
this God, after whose likeness we have been made, did in 
the course of time have pity upon man’s blindness, and 
assume our nature, taking flesh and coming down and 
dwelling among us as a man indistinguishable physically 
from ourselves. He who made the sun, moon and stars, 
the world and all that therein is, came down from Heaven 
in the person of his Son, with the express purpose of lead- 
ing a scorned life, and dying the most cruel, shameful 
death which finished ingenuity had invented. 

“While on earth he worked many miracles. He gave 
sight to the blind, raised the dead to life, fed thousands 
with a few loaves and fishes, and was seen to walk upon 
the waves, but at the end of his appointed time he died, 
as was foredetermined, upon the cross, and was buried by 
a few faithful friends. Those, however, who had put him 
to death set a jealous watch over his tomb. 

“There is no one, I| feel sure, in this room who doubts 
any part of the foregoing, but if there is, let me again pray 
him to confer with me in private, and I doubt not that by 
the blessing of God his doubts will cease. 

“The next day but one after our Lord was buried, the 
tomb being still jealously guarded by enemies, an angel was 
seen descending from Heaven with glittering raiment and a 
countenance that shone like fire. This glorious being 


238 The Way of All Flesh 


rolled away the stone from the grave, and our Lord him- 
self came forth, risen from the dead. 

““My young friends, this is no fanciful story like those 
of the ancient deities, but a matter of plain history as cer- 
tain as that you and I are now here together. If there is 
one fact better vouched for than another in the whole 
range of certainties it is the Resurrection of Jesus Christ; 
nor is it less well assured that a few weeks after he had 
risen from the dead, our Lord was seen by many hundreds 
of men and women to rise amid a host of angels into the 
air upon a heavenward journey till the clouds covered him 
and concealed him from the sight of men. 

“It may be said that the truth of these statements has 
been denied, but what, let me ask you, has become of the 
guestioners? Where are they now? Do we see them or 
hear of them? Have they been able to hold what little 
ground they made during the supineness of the last cen- 
tury? Is there one of your fathers or mothers or friends 
who does not see through them? Is there a single teacher 
or preacher in this great University who has not examined 
what these men had to say, and found it naught? Did you 
ever meet one of them, or do you find any of their books 
securing the respectful attention of those competent to 
judge concerning them? I think not; and I think also you 
know as well as I do why it is that they have sunk back 
into the abyss from which they for a time emerged: it is 
because after the most careful and patient examination by 
the ablest and most judicial minds of many countries, their 
arguments were found so untenable that they themselves 
renounced them. ‘They fled from the field routed, dis- 
mayed, and suing for peace; nor have they again come to 
the front in any civilised country. 

“You know these things. Why, then, do I insist upon 
them? My dear young friends, your own consciousness 
will have made the answer to each one of you already; 
it is because, though you know so well that these things did 
verily and indeed happen, you know also that you have not 


The Way of All Flesh 239 


realised them to yourselves as it was your duty to do, nor 
heeded their momentous, awful import. 

“‘And now let me go further. You all know that you will 
one day come to die, or if not to die—for there are not 
wanting signs which make me hope that the Lord may 
come again, while some of us now present are alive—yet to 
be changed; for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall 
be raised incorruptible, for this corruption must put 
on incorruption, and this mortal put on immortality, 
and the saying shall be brought to pass that is written, 
‘Death is swallowed up in victory.’ 

“Do you, or do you not believe that you will one day 
stand before the Judgement Seat of Christ? Do you, or 
do you not believe that you will have to give an account 
for every idle word that you have ever spoken? Do you, 
or do you not believe that you are called to live, not ac- 
cording to the will of man, but according to the will of 
that Christ who came down from Heaven out of love for 
you, who suffered and died for you, who calls you to him, 
and yearns towards you that you may take heed even in 
this your day—but who, if you heed not, will also one day 
judge you, and with whom there is no variableness nor 
shadow of turning? 

““My dear young friends, strait is the gate, and narrow 
is the way which leadeth to Eternal Life, and few there be 
that find it. Few, few, few, for he will not give up ALL 
for Christ’s sake, has given up nothing. 

“If you would live in the friendship of this world, if 
indeed you are not prepared to give up everything you 
most fondly cherish, should the Lord require it of you, then 
I say, put the idea of Christ deliberately on one side at 
once. Spit upon him, buffet him, crucify him anew, do 
anything you like so long as you secure the friendship of 
this world while it is still in your power to do so; the 
pleasures of this brief life may not be worth paying for 
by the torments of eternity, but they are something while 
they last. If, on the other hand, you would live in the 


240 The Way of All Flesh 


friendship of God, and be among the number of those for 
whom Christ has not died in vain; if, in a word, you value 
your eternal welfare, then give up the friendship of this 
world; of a surety you must make your choice between 
God and Mammon, for you cannot serve both. 

“IT put these considerations before you, if so homely a 
term may be pardoned, as a plain matter of business. 
There is nothing low or unworthy in this, as some lately 
have pretended, for all nature shows us that there is noth- 
ing more acceptable to God than an enlightened view of 
our own self-interest; never let anyone delude you here; it 
is a simple question of fact; did certain things happen or 
did they not? If they did happen, is it reasonable to sup- 
pose that you will make yourselves and others more happy 
by one course of conduct or by another? 

“And now let me ask you what answer you have made 
to this question hitherto? Whose friendship have you 
chosen? If, knowing what you know, you have not yet 
begun to act according to the immensity of the knowledge 
that is in you, then he who builds his house and lays up 
his treasure on the edge of a crater of molten lava is a 
sane, sensible person in comparison with yourselves. I say 
this as no figure of speech or bugbear with which to frighten 
you, but as an unvarnished unexaggerated statement 
which will be no more disputed by yourselves than by 
me.” 

And now Mr. Hawke, who up to this time had spoken 
with singular quietness, changed his manner to one of 
greater warmth and continued— 

“Oh! my young friends, turn, turn, turn, now while it 
is called to-day—now from this hour, from this instant; 
stay not even to gird up your loins; look not behind you 
for a second, but fly into the bosom of that Christ who is to 
be found of all who seek him, and from that fearful wrath 
of God which lieth in wait for those who know not the 
things belonging to their peace. For the Son of Man 
cometh as a thief in the night, and there is not one of us 


The Way of All Flesh QAT 


can tell but what this day his soul may be required of him. 
If there is even one here who has heeded me,’’—and he let 
his eye fall for an instant upon almost all his hearers, but 
especially on the Ernest set—‘“‘I shall know that it was not 
for nothing that I felt the call of the Lord, and heard as I 
thought a voice by night that bade me come hither quickly 
for there was a chosen vessel who had need of me.” 

Here Mr. Hawke ended rather abruptly; his earnest 
manner, striking countenance and excellent delivery had 
produced an effect greater than the actual words I have 
given can convey to the reader; the virtue lay in the man 
more than in what he said; as for the last few mysterious 
words about his having heard a voice by night, their effect 
was magical; there was not one who did not look down to 
the ground, nor who in his heart did not half believe that he 
was the chosen vessel on whose especial behalf God had 
sent Mr. Hawke to Cambridge. Even if this were not so, 
each one of them felt that he was now for the first time 
in the actual presence of one who had had a direct com- 
munication from the Almighty, and they were thus sud- 
denly brought a hundredfold nearer to the New Testament 
miracles. They were amazed, not to say scared, and as 
though by tacit consent they gathered together, thanked 
Mr. Hawke for his sermon, said good-night in a humble, 
deferential manner to Badcock and the other Simeonites, 
and left the room together. They had heard nothing but 
what they had been hearing all their lives; how was it, 
then, that they were so dumbfounded by it? I suppose 
partly because they had lately begun to think more seri- 
ously, and were in a fit state to be impressed, partly from 
the greater directness with which each felt himself ad- 
dressed, through the sermon being delivered in a room, and 
partly to the logical consistency, freedom from exaggera- 
tion, and profound air of conviction with which Mr. Hawke 
had spoken. His simplicity and obvious earnestness had 
impressed them even before he had alluded to his special 
mission, but this clenched everything, and the words “‘ Lord, 


Q42 The Way of All Flesh 


is it 1?” were upon the hearts of each as they walked pen- 
sively home through moonlit courts and cloisters. 

I do not know what passed among the Simeonites after 
the Ernest set had left them, but they would have been 
more than mortal if they had not been a good deal elated 
with the results of the evening. Why, one of Ernest’s 
friends was in the University eleven, and he had actually 
been in Badcock’s rooms and had slunk off on saying good- 
night as meekly as any of them. It was no small thing to 
have scored a success like this. 


CHAPTER L 


ErneEsT felt now that the turning point of his life had 
come. He would give up all for Christ—even his tobacco. 

So he gathered together his pipes and pouches, and 
locked them up in his portmanteau under his bed where 
they should be out of sight, and as much out of mind as 
possible. He did not burn them, because someone might 
come in who wanted to smoke, and though he might 
abridge his own liberty, yet, as smoking was not a sin, 
there was no reason why he should be hard on other people. 

After breakfast he left his rooms to call on a man named 
Dawson, who had been one of Mr. Hawke’s hearers on the 
preceding evening, and who was reading for ordination at 
the forthcoming Ember Weeks, now only four months dis- 
tant. This man had been always of a rather serious turn 
of mind—a little too much so for Ernest’s taste; but times 
had changed, and Dawson’s undoubted sincerity seemed to 
render him a fitting counsellor for Ernest at the present 
time. As he was going through the first court of John’s on 
his way to Dawson’s rooms, he met Badcock, and greeted 
him with some deference. His advance was received with 
one of those ecstatic gleams which shone occasionally upon 
the face of Badcock, and which, if Ernest had known 
more, would have reminded him of Robespierre. As it was, 
he saw it and unconsciously recognised the unrest and self- 


The Way of All Flesh 243 


seekingness of the man, but could not yet formulate them; 
he disliked Badcock more than ever, but as he was going to 
profit by the spiritual benefits which he had put in his way, 
he was bound to be civil to him, and civil he therefore was. 

Badcock told him that Mr. Hawke had returned to town 
immediately his discourse was over, but that before doing 
so he had enquired particularly who Ernest and two or 
three others were. I believe each one of Ernest’s friends 
was given to understand that he had been more or less 
particularly enquired after. Ernest’s vanity—for he was 
his mother’s son—was tickled at this; the idea again pre- 
sented itself to him that he might be the one for whose 
benefit Mr. Hawke had been sent. There was something, 
too, in Badcock’s manner which conveyed the idea that he. 
could say more if he chose, but had been enjoined to silence. 

On reaching Dawson’s rooms, he found his friend in rap- 
tures over the discourse of the preceding evening. Hardly 
less delighted was he with the effect it had produced on 
Ernest. He had always known, he said, that Ernest would 
come round; he had been sure of it, but he had hardly ex- 
pected the conversion to be so sudden. Ernest said no 
more had he, but now that he saw his duty so clearly he 
would get ordained as soon as possible, and take a curacy, 
even though the doing so would make him have to go 
down from Cambridge earlier, which would be a great 
grief to him. Dawson applauded this determination, and 
it was arranged that as Ernest was still more or less of a 
weak brother, Dawson should take him, so to speak, in 
spiritual tow for a while, and strengthen and confirm his 
faith. 

An offensive and defensive alliance therefore was struck 
up between this pair (who were in reality singularly ill 
assorted), and Ernest set to work to master the books on 
which the Bishop would examine him. Others gradually 
joined them till they formed a small set or church (for 
these are the same things), and the effect of Mr. Hawke’s 
sermon instead of wearing off in a few days, as might have 


244 The Way of All Flesh 


been expected, became more and more marked, so much so 
that it was necessary for Ernest’s friends to hold him back 
rather than urge him on, for he seemed likely to develop— 
as indeed he did for a time—into a religious enthusiast. 

In one matter only did he openly backslide. He had, as 
I said above, locked up his pipes and tobacco, so that he 
might not be tempted to use them. All day long on the 
day after Mr. Hawke’s sermon he let them lie in his port- 
manteau bravely; but this was not very difficult, as he had 
for some time given up smoking till after hall. After hall 
this day he did not smoke till chapel time, and then went 
to chapel in self-defense. When he returned he deter- 
mined to look at the matter from a common sense point of 
view. On this he saw that, provided tobacco did not in- 
jure his health—and he really could not see that it did—it 
stood much on the same footing as tea or coffee. 

Tobacco had nowhere been forbidden in the Bible, but 
then it had not yet been discovered, and had probably only 
escaped proscription for this reason. We can conceive of 
St. Paul or even our Lord Himself as drinking a cup of 
tea, but we cannot imagine either of them as smoking a 
cigarette, or a churchwarden. Ernest could not deny this, 
and admitted that Paul would almost certainly have con- 
demned tobacco in good round terms if he had known of 
its existence. Was it not then taking rather a mean ad- 
vantage of the Apostle to stand on his not having actually 
forbidden it? On the other hand, it was possible that God 
knew Paul would have forbidden smoking, and had pur- 
posely arranged the discovery of tobacco for a period at 
which Paul should be no longer living. This might seem 
rather hard on Paul, considering all he had done for Chris- 
tianity, but it would be made up to him in other ways. 

These reflections satisfied Ernest that on the whole he 
had better smoke, so he sneaked to his portmanteau and 
brought out his pipes and tobacco again. ‘There should be 
moderation, he felt, in all things, even in virtue; so for that 
night he smoked immoderately. It was a pity, however, 


The Way of All Flesh Q45 


that he had bragged to Dawson about giving up smoking. 
The pipes had better be kept in a cupboard for a week or 
two, till in other and easier respects Ernest should have 
proved his steadfastness. Then they might steal out again 
little by little—and so they did. 

Ernest now wrote home a letter couched in a vein differ- 
ent from his ordinary ones. His letters were usually all 
common form and padding, for as I have already explained, 
if he wrote about anything that really interested him, 
his mother always wanted to know more and more about 
it—every fresh answer being as the lopping off of a hydra’s 
head and giving birth to half-a-dozen or more new ques- 
tions—but in the end it came invariably to the same result, 
namely, that he ought to have done something else, or 
ought not to go on doing as he proposed. Now, however, 
there was a new departure, and for the thousandth time he 
concluded that he was about to take a course of which his 
father and mother would approve, and in which they 
would be interested, so at last he and they might get on 
more sympathetically than heretofore. He therefore wrote 
a gushing, impulsive letter, which afforded much amuse- 
ment to myself as I read it, but which is too long for re- 
production. One passage ran: “I am now going towards 
Christ; the greater number of my college friends are, I 
fear, going away from Him; we must pray for them that 
they may find the peace that is in Christ even as I have 
myself found it.”” Ernest covered his face with his hands 
for shame as he read this extract from the bundle of letters 
he had put into my hands—they had been returned to him 
by his father on his mother’s death, his mother having 
carefully preserved them. 

“Shall I cut it out?” said I. “‘I will, if you like.” 

“Certainly not,” he answered, “‘and if good-natured 
friends have kept more records of my follies, pick out any 
plums that may amuse the reader, and let him have his 
laugh over them.” But fancy what effect a letter like 
this—so unled up to—must have produced at Battersby! 


246 The Way of All Flesh 


Even Christina refrained from ecstasy over her son’s hav- 
ing discovered the power of Christ’s word, while Theobald 
was frightened out of his wits. It was well his son was not 
going to have any doubts or difficulties, and that he would 
be ordained without making a fuss over it, but he smelt 
mischief in this sudden conversion of one who had never 
yet shown any inclination towards religion. He hated peo- 
ple who did not know where to stop. Ernest was always so 
outré and strange; there was never any knowing what he 
would do next, except that it would be something unusual 
and silly. Ifhe was to get the bit between his teeth after he 
had got ordained and bought his living, he would play more 
pranks than ever he, Theobald, had done. The fact, doubt- 
less, of his being ordained and having bought a living 
would go a long way to steady him, and if he married, his 
wife must see to the rest; this was his only chance and, to 
do justice to his sagacity, Theobald in his heart did not 
think very highly of it. 

When Ernest came down to Battersby in June, he im- 
prudently tried to open up a more unreserved communica- 
tion with his father than was his wont. The first of Er- 
nest’s snipe-like flights on being flushed by Mr. Hawke’s 
sermon was in the direction of ultra-Evangelicalism. Theo- 
bald himself had been much more Low than High Church. 
This was the normal development of the country clergyman 
during the first years of his clerical life, between, we will 
say, the years 1825 to 1850; but he was not prepared for 
the almost contempt with which Ernest now regarded the 
doctrines of baptismal regeneration and priestly absolution 
(Hoity-toity, indeed, what business had he with such ques- 
tions?) nor for his desire to find some means of reconciling 
Methodism and the Church. Theobald hated the Church 
of Rome, but he hated dissenters, too, for he found them 
as a general rule troublesome people to deal with; he al- 
ways found people who did not agree with him trouble- 
some to deal with: besides, they set up for knowing as 
much as he did; nevertheless if he had been let alone he 


The Way of All Flesh 947 


would have leaned towards them rather than towards the 
High Church party. The neighbouring clergy, however, 
would not let him alone. One by one they had come under 
the influence, directly or indirectly, of the Oxford move- 
ment which had begun twenty years earlier. It was sur- 
prising how many practices he now tolerated which in his 
youth he would have considered Popish; he knew very 
well therefore which way things were going in Church 
matters, and saw that as usual Ernest was setting himself 
the other way. The opportunity for telling his son that he 
was a fool was too favourable not to be embraced, and 
Theobald was not slow to embrace it. Ermest was annoyed 
and surprised, for had not his father and mother been 
wanting him to be more religious all his life? Now that he 
had become so they were still not satisfied. He said to 
himself that a prophet was not without honour save in his 
own country, but he had been lately—or rather until 
lately—getting into an odious habit of turning proverbs 
upside down, and it occurred to him that a country 1s 
sometimes not without honour save for its own prophet. 
Then he laughed, and for the rest of the day felt more as he 
used to feel before he had heard Mr. Hawke’s sermon. 

He returned to Cambridge for the Long Vacation of 1858 
—none too soon, for he had to go in for the Voluntary 
Theological Examination, which bishops were now begin- 
ning to insist upon. He imagined all the time he was read- 
ing that he was storing himself with the knowledge that 
would best fit him for the work he had taken in hand. In 
truth, he was cramming for a pass. In due time he did 
pass—creditably, and was ordained Deacon with half-a- 
dozen others of his friends in the autumn of 1858. He was 
then just twenty-three years old. 


CHAPTER LI 


Ernest had been ordained to a curacy in one of the central 
parts of London. He hardly knew anything of London yet, 


248 The Way of All Flesh 


but his instincts drew him thither. The day after he was 
ordained he entered upon his duties—feeling much as his 
father had done when he found himself boxed up in the 
carriage with Christina on the morning of his marriage. 
Before the first three days were over, he became aware that 
the light of the happiness which he had known during his 
four years at Cambridge had been extinguished, and he 
was appalled by the irrevocable nature of the step which 
he now felt that he had taken much too hurriedly. 

The most charitable excuse that I can make for the 
vagaries which it will now be my duty to chronicle is that 
the shock of change consequent upon his becoming sud- 
denly religious, being ordained and leaving Cambridge, had 
been too much for my hero, and had for the time thrown 
him of an equilibrium which was yet little supported by 
experience, and therefore as a matter of course unstable. 

Everyone has a mass of bad work in him which he will 
have to work off and get rid of before he can do better— 
and indeed, the more lasting a man’s ultimate good work 
is, the more sure he is to pass through a time, and perhaps 
a very long one, in which there seems very little hope for 
him at all. We must all sow our spiritual wild oats. The 
fault I feel personally disposed to find with my godson is 
not that he had wild oats to sow, but that they were such 
an exceedingly tame and uninteresting crop. The sense of 
humour and tendency to think for himself, of which till a 
few months previously he had been showing fair promise, 
were nipped as though by a late frost, while his earlier 
habit of taking on trust everything that was told him by 
those in authority, and following everything out to the 
bitter end, no matter how preposterous, returned with re- 
doubled strength. I suppose this was what might have 
been expected from anyone placed as Ernest now was, es- 
pecially when his antecedents are remembered, but it sur- 
prised and disappointed some of his cooler-headed Cam- 
bridge friends who had begun to think well of his ability. 
To himself it seemed that religion was incompatible with 


The Way of All Flesh Q49 


half measures, or even with compromise. Circumstances 
had led to his being ordained; for the moment he was sorry 
they had, but he had done it and must go through with it. 
He therefore set himself to find out what was expected of 
him, and to act accordingly. 

His rector was a moderate High Churchman of no very 
pronounced views—an elderly man who had had too many 
curates not to have long since found out that the connec- 
tion between rector and curate, like that between employer 
and employed in every other walk of life, was a mere mat- 
ter of business. He had now two curates, of whom Ernest 
was the junior; the senior curate was named Pryer, and 
when this gentleman made advances, as he presently did, 
Ernest in his forlorn state was delighted to meet them. 

Pryer was about twenty-eight years old. He had been 
at Eton and at Oxford. He was tall, and passed generally 
for good-looking; I only saw him once for about five 
minutes, and then thought him odious both in manners 
and appearance. Perhaps it was because he caught me up 
in a way I did not like. I had quoted Shakespeare for lack 
of something better to fill up a sentence—and had said that 
one touch of nature made the whole world kin. ‘‘Ah,”’ said 
Pryer, in a bold, brazen way which displeased me, “but 
one touch of the unnatural makes it more kindred still,” 
and he gave me a look as though he thought me an old 
bore and did not care two straws whether I was shocked or 
not. Naturally enough, after this I did not like him. 

This, however, is anticipating, for it was not till Ernest 
had been three or four months in London that I happened 
to meet his fellow-curate, and I must deal here rather 
with the effect he produced upon my godson than upon 
myself. Besides being what was generally considered good- 
looking, he was faultless in his get-up, and altogether the 
kind of man whom Ernest was sure to be afraid of and yet 
be taken in by. The style of his dress was very High 
Church, and his acquaintances were exclusively of the 
extreme High Church party, but he kept his views a good 


250 The Way of All Flesh 


deal in the background in his rector’s presence, and that 
gentleman, though he looked askance on some of Pryer’s 
friends, had no such ground of complaint against him as 
to make him sever the connection. Pryer, too, was popular 
in the pulpit, and, take him all round, it was probable that 
many worse curates would be found for one better. When 
Pryer called on my hero, as soon as the two were alone to- 
gether, he eyed him all over with a quick penetrating glance 
and seemed not dissatished with the result—for I must 
say here that Ernest had improved in personal appearance 
under the more genial treatment he had received at Cam- 
bridge. Pryer, in fact, approved of him sufficiently to 
treat him civilly, and Ernest was immediately won by 
anyone who did this. It was not long before he discovered 
that the High Church party, and even Rome itself, had 
more to say for themselves than he had thought. This was 
his first snipe-like change of flight. 

Pryer introduced him to several of his friends. They 
were all of them young clergymen, belonging as I have said 
to the highest of the High Church school, but Ernest was 
surprised to find how much they resembled other people 
when among themselves. This was a shock to him; it - 
was ere long a still greater one to find that certain thoughts 
which he had warred against as fatal to his soul, and which 
he had imagined he should lose once for all on ordination, 
were still as troublesome to him as they had been; he also 
saw plainly enough that the young gentlemen who formed 
the circle of Pryer’s friends were in much the same un- 
happy predicament as himself. 

This was deplorable. The only way out of it that Ernest 
could see was that he should get married at once. But then 
he did not know any one whom he wanted to marry. He 
did not know any woman, in fact, whom he would not 
rather die than marry. It had been one of Theobald’s and 
Christina’s main objects to keep him out of the way of 
women, and they had so far succeeded that women had 
become to him mysterious, inscrutable objects to be tol- 


The Way of All Flesh 251 


erated when it was impossible to avoid them, but never to 
be sought out or encouraged. As for any man loving, or 
even being at all fond of any woman, he supposed it was 
so, but he believed the greater number of those who pro- 
fessed such sentiments were liars. Now, however, it was 
clear that he had hoped against hope too long, and that the 
only thing to do was to go and ask the first woman who 
would listen to him to come and be married to him as soon 
as possible. 

He broached this to Pryer, and was surprised to find that 
this gentleman, though attentive to such members of his 
flock as were young and good-looking, was strongly in 
favour of the celibacy of the clergy, as indeed were the 
other demure young clerics to whom Pryer had introduced 
Ernest. 


CHAPTER LII 


*You know, my dear Pontifex,” said Pryer to him, some 
few weeks after Ernest had become acquainted with him, 
when the two were taking a constitutional one day in 
Kensington Gardens, “‘you know, my dear Pontifex, it 
is all very well to quarrel with Rome, but Rome has re- 
duced the treatment of the human soul to a science, while 
our own Church, though so much purer in many respects, 
has no organised system either of diagnosis or pathology—I 
mean, of course, spiritual diagnosis and spiritual pathology. 
Our Church does not prescribe remedies upon any settled 
system, and, what is still worse, even when her physi- 
cians have according to their lights ascertained the dis- 
ease and pointed out the remedy, she has no discipline 
which will ensure its being actually applied. If our pa- 
tients do not choose to do as we tell them, we cannot make 
them. Perhaps really under all the circumstances this is 
as well, for we are spiritually mere horse doctors as 
compared with the Roman priesthood nor can we hope to 
make much headway against the sin and misery that sur- 


252 The Way of All Flesh 


round us, till we return in some respects to the practice 
of our forefathers and of the greater part of Christendom.” 

Ernest asked in what respects it was that his friend de- 
sired a return to the practice of our forefathers. 

“Why, my dear fellow, can you really be ignorant? 
It is just this, either the priest is indeed a spiritual guide, 
as being able to show people how they ought to live better 
than they can find out for themselves, or he is nothing 
at all—he has no raison d’étre. If the priest is not as much 
a healer and director of men’s souls as a physician is of 
their bodies, what is he? The history of all ages has shown 
—and surely you must know this as well as I do—that as 
men cannot cure the bodies of their patients if they have 
not been properly trained in hospitals under skilled teach- 
ers, so neither can souls be cured of their more hidden 
ailments without the help of men who are skilled in soul- 
craft—or in other words, of priests. .What do one half of 
our formularies and rubrics mean if not this? How in the 
name of all that is reasonable can we find out the exact 
nature of a spiritual malady, unless we have had expe- 
rience of other similar cases? How can we get this without 
express training? At present we have to begin all experi- 
ments for ourselves, without profiting by the organised 
experience of our predecessors, inasmuch as that experience 
is never organised and co-ordinated at all. At the outset, 
therefore, each one of us must ruin many souls which could 
be saved by knowledge of a few elementary principles.” 

Ernest was very much impressed. 

“As for men curing themselves,” continued Pryer, 
“‘they can no more cure their own souls than they can cure 
their own bodies, or manage their own law affairs. In 
these two last cases they see the folly of meddling with 
their own cases clearly enough, and go to a professional 
adviser as a matter of course; surely a man’s soul is at 
once a more difficult and intricate matter to treat, and at 
the same time it is more important to him that it should be 
treated nghtly than that either his body or his money 


The Way of All Flesh 256 


should be so. What are we to think of the practice of 
a Church which encourages people to rely on unprofes- 
sional advice in matters affecting their eternal welfare, 
when they would not think of jeopardising their worldly 
affairs by such insane conduct?” 

Ernest could see no weak place in this. These ideas had 
crossed his own mind vaguely before now, but he had 
never laid hold of them or set them in an orderly manner 
before himself. Nor was he quick at detecting false analo- 
gies and the misuse of metaphors; in fact he was a mere 
child in the hands of his fellow curate. 

“And what,” resumed Pryer, “does all this point to? 
Firstly, to the duty of confession—the outcry against 
which is absurd as an outcry would be against dissection 
as part of the training of medical students. Granted these 
young men must see and do a great deal we do not our- 
selves like even to think of, but they should adopt some 
other profession unless they are prepared for this; they may 
even get inoculated with poison from a dead body and lose 
their lives, but they must stand their chance. So if we as- 
pire to be priests in deed as well as name, we must famil- 
larise ourselves with the minutest and most repulsive de- 
tails of all kinds of sin, so that we may recognise it in all its 
stages. Some of us must doubtless perish spiritually in such 
investigations. We cannot help it; all science must have its 
martyrs, and none of these will deserve better of humanity 
than those who have fallen in the pursuit of spiritual 
pathology.” : 

Ernest grew more and more interested, but in the meek- 
ness of his soul said nothing. 

“T do not desire this martyrdom for myself,” continued 
the other; “‘on the contrary I will avoid it to the very ut- 
most of my power, but if it be God’s will that I should 
fall while studying what I believe most calculated to ad- 
vance his glory—then, I say, not my will, O Lord, but thine 
be done.” 

This was too much even for Ernest. “I heard of an 


254... The Way of All Flesh 


Irishwoman once,” he said, with a smile, ‘‘who said she 
was a martyr to the drink.” 

‘‘And so she was,” rejoined Pryer with warmth; and he 
went on to show that this good woman was an experimen- 
talist whose experiment, though disastrous in its effects 
upon herself, was pregnant with instruction to other people. 
She was thus a true martyr or witness to the frightful con- 
sequences of intemperance, to the saving, doubtless, of 
many who but for her martyrdom would have taken to 
drinking. She was one of a forlorn hope whose failure to 
take a certain position went to the proving it to be im- 
pregnable and therefore to the abandonment of all attempt 
to take it. This was almost as great a gain to mankind 
as the actual taking of the position would have been. 

““ Besides,” he added more hurriedly, “‘the limits of vice 
and virtue are wretchedly ill-defined. Half the vices which 
the world condemns most loudly have seeds of good in 
them and require moderate use rather than total absti- 
nence.”’ 

Ernest asked timidly for an instance. 

“No, no,” said Pryer, ‘I will give you no instance, but 
I will give you a formula that shall embrace all instances. 
It is this, that no practice is entirely vicious which has 
not been extinguished among the comeliest, most vigorous, 
and most cultivated races of mankind in spite of centuries 
of endeavour to extirpate it. If a vice in spite of such 
efforts can still hold its own among the most polished na- 
tions, it must be founded on some immutable truth or fact 
in human nature, and must have some compensatory ad- 
vantage which we cannot afford altogether to dispense 
with.” 

“But,” said Ernest timidly, “is not this virtually doing 
away with all distinction between right and wrong, and 
leaving people without any moral guide whatever?” 

““Not the people,” was the answer: “‘it must be our care 
to be guides to these, for they are and always will be in- 
capable of guiding themselves sufficiently. We should tell 


The Way of All Flesh 268 


them what they must do, and in an ideal state of things 
should be able to enforce their doing it: perhaps when we 
are better instructed the ideal state may come about; 
nothing will so advance it as greater knowledge of spiritual 
pathology on our own part. For this, three things are 
necessary; firstly, absolute freedom in experiment for us 
the clergy; secondly, absolute knowledge of what the laity 
think and do, and of what thoughts and actions result in 
what spiritual conditions; and thirdly, a compacter organi- 
sation among ourselves. 

““If we are to do any good we must be a closely united 
body, and must be sharply divided from the laity. Also we 
must be free from those ties which a wife and children in- 
volve. I can hardly express the horror with which I am 
filled by seeing English priests living in what I can only 
designate as ‘open matrimony. It is deplorable. The 
priest must be absolutely sexless—if not in practice, yet at 
any rate in theory, absolutely—and that, too, by a theory so 
universally accepted that none shall venture to dispute it.”’ 

“But,” said Ernest, “has not the Bible already told 
people what they ought and ought not to do, and is it not 
enough for us to insist on what can be found here, and let 
the rest alone?” 

“If you begin with the Bible,” was the rejoinder, “you 
are three parts gone on the road to infidelity, and will go 
the other part before you know where you are. The Bible 
is not without its value to us the clergy, but for the laity 
it is a stumbling-block which cannot be taken out of their 
way too soon or too completely. Of course, I mean on the 
supposition that they read it, which, happily, they seldom 
do. If people read the Bible as the ordinary British 
churchman or churchwoman reads it, it is harmless enough; 
but if they read it with any care—which we should assume 
they will if we give it them at all—it is fatal to them.” 

“What do you mean?” said Ernest, more and more as- 
tonished, but more and more feeling that he was at least 
in the hands of a man who had definite ideas. 


256 The Way of All Flesh 


/ “Your question shows me that you have never read your 


| 


} 


Bible. A more unreliable book was never put upon paper. 
Take my advice and don’t read it, not till you are a few 


| years older, and may do so safely.” 


“But surely you believe the Bible when it tells you of 


| such things as that Christ died and rose from the dead? 


- Surely you believe this?” said Ernest, quite atts to be 


told that Pryer believed nothing of the kind. 

““T do not believe it, I know it.’ 

“But how—if the testimony of the Bible fails?” 

“On that of the living voice of the Church, which I 
know to be infallible and to be informed of Christ himself.” 


CHAPTER LIU 


TuE foregoing conversation and others like it made a deep 
impression upon my hero. If next day he had taken a 
walk with Mr. Hawke, and heard what he had to say on the 
other side, he would have been just as much struck, and 
as ready to fling off what Pryer had told him, as he now 
was to throw aside all he had ever heard from anyone ex- 
cept Pryer; but there was no Mr. Hawke at hand, so Pryer 
had everything his own way. 

Embryo minds, like embryo bodies, pass through a num- 
ber of strange metamorphoses before they adopt their final 
shape. It is no more to be wondered at that one who 1s 
going to turn out a Roman Catholic, should have passed 
through the stages of being first a Methodist, and then a 
free thinker, than that a man should at some former time 
have been a mere cell, and later on an invertebrate animal. 
Ernest, however, could not be expected to know this; em- 
bryos never do. Embryos think with each stage of their 
development that they have now reached the only condi- 
tion which really suits them. This, they say, must cer- 
tainly be their last, inasmuch as its close will be so 
great a shock that nothing can survive it. Every change 
is a shock; every shock is a pro tanto death. What we call 


The Way of All Flesh eA | 


death is only a shock great enough to destroy our power to 
recognise a past and a present as resembling one another. 
It is the making us consider the points of difference be- 
tween our present and our past greater than the points of 
resemblance, so that we can no longer call the former of 
these two in any proper sense a continuation of the second, 
but find it less trouble to think of it as something that we 
choose to call new. 

But, to let this pass, it was clear that spiritual pathology 
(I confess that I do not know myself what spiritual pathol- 
ogy means—but Pryer and Ernest doubtless did) was the 
great desideratum of the age. It seemed to Ernest that he 
had made this discovery himself and been familiar with 
it all his life, that he had never known, in fact, of anything 
else. He wrote long letters to his college friends expound- 
ing his views as though he had been one of the Apostolic 
fathers. As for the Old Testament writers, he had no 
patience with them. “Do oblige me,” I find him writing 
to one friend, “by reading the prophet Zechariah, and 
giving me your candid opinion upon him. He is poor stuff, 
full of Yankee bounce; it is sickening to live in an age when 
such balderdash can be gravely admired whether as poetry 
or prophecy.” This was because Pryer had set him against 
Zechariah. I do not know what Zechariah had done; I 
should think myself that Zechariah was a very good 
prophet; perhaps it was because he was a Bible writer, and 
not a very prominent one, that Pryer selected him as one 
through whom to disparage the Bible in comparison with 
the Church. 

To his friend Dawson I find him saying a little later on: 
**Pryer and IJ continue our walks, working out each other’s 
thoughts. At first he used to do all the thinking, but I 
think I am pretty well abreast of him now, and rather 
chuckle at seeing that he is already beginning to modify 
some of the views he held most strongly when I first knew 
him. 

“Then I think he was on the high road to Rome; now, 


258 The Way of All Flesh 


however, he seems to be a good deal struck with a sug- 
gestion of mine in which you, too, perhaps may be inter- 
ested. You see we must infuse new life into the Church 
somehow; we are not holding our own against either Rome 
or infidelity.”” (I may say in passing that I do not be- 
lieve Ernest had as yet ever seen an infidel—not to speak 
to.) “I proposed, therefore, a few days back to Pryer— 
and he fell in eagerly with the proposal as soon as he saw 
that I had the means of carrying it out—that we should 
set on foot a spiritual movement somewhat analogous to 
the Young England movement of twenty years ago, the 
aim of which shall be at once to outbid Rome on the one 
hand, and scepticism on the other. For this purpose I see 
nothing better than the foundation of an institution or col- 
lege for placing the nature and treatment of sin on a more 
scientific basis than it rests at present. We want—to 
borrow a useful term of Pryer’s—a College of Spiritual 
Pathology where young men” (I suppose Ernest thought 
he was no longer young by this time) “‘may study the na- 
ture and treatment of the sins of the soul as medical stu- 
dents study those of the bodies of their patients. Such.a 
college, as you will probably admit, will approach both 
Rome on the one hand, and science on the other—Rome, 
as giving the priesthood more skill, and therefore as paving 
the way for their obtaining greater power, and science, by 
recognising that even free thought has a certain kind of 
value in spiritual enquiries. To this purpose Pryer and I 
have resolved to devote ourselves henceforth heart and 
soul. 

““Of course, my ideas are still unshaped, and all will 
depend upon the men by whom the college is first worked. 
I am not yet a priest, but Pryer is, and if I were to start 
the College, Pryer might take charge of it for a time and 
I work under him nominally as his subordinate. Pryer 
himself suggested this. Is it not generous of him? 

“The worst of it is that we have not enough money; I 
have, it is true, £5000, but we want at least £10,000, so 


The Way of All Flesh 259 


Pryer says, before we can start; when we are fairly under 
weigh I might live at the college and draw a salary from 
the foundation, so that it is all one, or nearly so, whether I 
invest my money in this way or in buying a living; besides 
I want very little; it 1s certain that I shall never marry; no 
clergyman should think of this, and an unmarried man 
can live on next to nothing. Still I do not see my way to as 
much money as I want, and Pryer suggests that as we can 
hardly earn more now we must get it by a judicious series 
of investments. Pryer knows several people who make 
quite a handsome income out of very little or, indeed, I 
may say, nothing at all, by buying things at a place they 
call the Stock Exchange; I don’t know much about it yet, 
but Pryer says I should soon learn; he thinks, indeed, that 
I have shown rather a talent in this direction, and under 
proper auspices should make a very good man of business. 
‘Others, of course, and not I, must decide this; but a man 
can do anything if he gives his mind to it, and though | 
-should not care about having more money for my own sake, 
I care about it very much when | think of the good I could 
-do with it by saving souls from such horrible torture here- 
after. Why, if the thing succeeds, and I really cannot see 
what is to hinder it, it is hardly possible to exaggerate its 
importance, nor the proportions which it may ultimately 
assume,” etc., etc. 

Again I asked Ernest whether he minded my printing 
this. He winced, but said, ‘No, not if it helps you to tell 
your story: but don’t you think it is too long?” 

I said it would let the reader see for himself how things 
were going in half the time that it would take me to ex- 
plain them to him. 

“Very well then, keep it by all means.”’ 

I continue turning over my file of Ernest’s letters and 
find as follows— 


“Thanks for your last, in answer to which I send you a 
rough copy of a letter I sent to the Times a day or two 


260 The Way of All Flesh 


back. They did not insert it, but it embodies pretty fully 
my ideas on the parochial visitation question, and Pryer 
fully approves of the letter. Think it carefully over and 
send it back to me when read, for it is so exactly my present 
creed that I cannot afford to lose it. 

“T should very much like to have a viva voce discussion 
on these matters: I can only see for certain that we have 
suffered a dreadful loss in being no longer able to excom- 
municate. We should excommunicate rich and poor 
alike, and pretty freely too. If this power were restored 
to us we could, I think, soon put a stop to by far the greater 
part of the sin and misery with which we are surrounded.” 


These letters were written only a few weeks after Ernest 
had been ordained, but they are nothing to others that he 
wrote a little later on. 

In his eagerness to regenerate the Church of England 
(and through this the universe) by the means which Pryer 
had suggested to him, it occurred to him to try to famil- 
iarise himself with the habits and thoughts of the poor by 
going and living among them. [ think he got this notion 
from Kingsley’s ‘‘ Alton Locke,” which, High Churchman 
though he for the nonce was, he had devoured as he had 
~ devoured Stanley’s “‘Life of Arnold,” Dickens’s novels, 
and whatever other literary garbage of the day was most 
likely to do him harm; at any rate he actually put his 
scheme into practice, and took lodgings in Ashpit Place, a 
small street in the neighbourhood of Drury Lane Theatre, 
in a house of which the landlady was the widow of a 
cabman. 

This lady occupied the whole ground floor. In the 
front kitchen there was a tinker. The back kitchen was 
let to a bellows-mender. On the first floor came Ernest, 
with his two rooms which he furnished comfortably, for 
one must draw the line somewhere. ‘The two upper floors 
were parcelled out among four different sets of lodgers: 
there was a tailor named Holt, a drunken fellow who used 


The Way of All Flesh 261 


to beat his wife at night till her screams woke the house: 
above him there was another tailor with a wife but no 
children; these people were Wesleyans, given to drink 
but not noisy. The two back rooms were held by single 
ladies, who it seemed to Ernest must be respectably con- 
nected, for well-dressed, gentlemanly-looking young men 
used to go up and down stairs past Ernest’s rooms to 
call at any rate on Miss Snow—Enrnest had heard her door 
slam after they had passed. He thought too, that some of 
them went up to Miss Maitland’s. Mrs. Jupp, the land- 
lady, told Ernest that these were brothers and cousins 
of Miss Snow’s, and that she was herself looking out for 
a situation as a governess, but at present had an engage- 
ment as an actress at the Drury Lane Theatre. Ernest 
asked whether Miss Maitland in the top back was also 
looking out for a situation, and was told she was wanting 
an engagement as a milliner. He believed whatever Mrs. 
Jupp told him. 


ads od al BW Soy ied OF 


Tuis move on Ernest’s part was variously commented 
upon by his friends, the general opinion being that it 
was just like Pontifex, who was sure to do something 
unusual wherever he went, but that on the whole the idea 
was commendable. Christina could not restrain herself 
when on sounding her clerical neighbours she found them 
inclined to applaud her son for conduct which they ideal- 
ised into something much more self-denying than it really 
was. She did not quite like his living in such an unaristo- 
cratic neighbourhood; but what he was doing would prob- 
ably get into the newspapers, and then great people would 
take notice of him. Besides, it would be very cheap; 
down among these poor people he could live for next to 
nothing, and might put by a great deal of his income. As 
for temptations, there could be few or none in such a place 
as that. This argument about cheapness was the one with 


262 The Way of All Flesh 


which she most successfully met Theobald, who grumbled 
more suo that he had no sympathy with his son’s extrava- 
gance and conceit. When Christina pointed out to him 
that it would be cheap he replied that there was something 
in that. 3 

On Ernest himself the effect was to confirm the good 
opinion of himself which had been growing upon him ever 
since he had begun to read for orders, and to make him 
flatter himself that he was among the few who were ready 
to give up all for Christ. Ere long he began to conceive 
of himself as a man with a mission and a great future. 
His lightest and most hastily formed opinions began to be 
of momentous importance to him, and he inflicted them, 
as I have already shown, on his old friends, week by week 
becoming more and more en#été with himself and his own 
crotchets. I should like well enough to draw a veil over 
this part of my hero’s career, but cannot do so without 
marring my story. 


In the spring of 1859 I find him writing— 

“I cannot call the visible Church Christian till its fruits 
are Christian, that is until the fruits of the members of 
the Church of England are in conformity, or something 
like conformity, with her teaching. I cordially agree with 
the teaching of the Church of England in most respects, 
but she says one thing and does another, and until ex- 
communication—yes, and wholesale excommunication—be 
resorted to, I cannot call her a Christian institution. I 
should begin with our Rector, and if I found it necessary 
to follow him up by excommunicating the Bishop, I should 
not flinch even from this. 


“The present London Rectors are hopeless people to 
deal with. My own is one of the best of them, but the 
moment Pryer and I show signs of wanting to attack an 
evil in a way not recognised by routine, or of remedying 
anything about which no outcry had been made, we are 


The Way of All Flesh 263 


met with, ‘I cannot think what you mean by all this dis- 
turbance; nobody else among the clergy sees these things, 
and I have no wish to be the first to begin turning every- 
thing topsy-turvy.’ And then people call him a sensible 
man. I have no patience with them. However, we know 
what we want, and, as | wrote to Dawson the other day, 
have a scheme on foot which will, I think, fairly meet the 
requirements of the case. But we want more money, 
and my first move towards getting this has not turned out 
quite so satisfactorily as Pryer and I had hoped; we shall 
however, I doubt not, retrieve it shortly.” 


When Ernest came to London he intended doing a good 
deal of house-to-house visiting, but Pryer had talked him 
out of this even before he settled down in his new and 
strangely-chosen apartments. ‘The line he now took was 
that if people wanted Christ, they must prove their want 
by taking some little trouble, and the trouble required of 
them was that they should come and seek him, Ernest, 
out; there he was in the midst of them ready to teach; 
if people did not choose to come to him it was no fault of 
his. 

““My great business here,” he writes again to Dawson, 
‘is to observe. I am not doing much in parish work be- 
yond my share of the daily services. [ have a man’s Bible 
Class, and a boy’s Bible Class, and a good many young men 
and boys to whom I give instruction one way or another; 
then there are the Sunday School children, with whom I 
fill my room on a Sunday evening as full as it will hold, and 
let them sing hymns and chants. They like this. I doa 
great deal of reading—chiefly of books which Pryer and I 
think most likely to help; we find nothing comparable to 
the Jesuits. Pryer is a thorough gentleman, and an admi- 
rable man of business—no less observant of the things of 
this world, in fact, than of the things above; by a brilliant 
coup he has retrieved, or nearly so, a rather serious loss 
which threatened to delay indefinitely the execution of our 


€ 


264 The Way of All Flesh 


great scheme. He and I daily gather fresh principles. I 
believe great things are before me, and am strong in the 
hope of being able by and by to effect much. 

“‘As for you I bid you Godspeed. Be bold but logical, 
speculative but cautious, daringly courageous, but properly 
circumspect withal,” etc., etc. 


I think this may do for the present. 


CHABLERALY, 


I wap called on Ernest as a matter of course when he first 
came to London, but had not seen him. I had been out 
when he returned my call, so that he had been in town for 
some weeks before I actually saw him, which I did not very 
long after he had taken possession of his new rooms. I 
liked his face, but except for the common bond of music, 
in respect of which our tastes were singularly alike, I 
should hardly have known how to get on with him. To do 
him justice he did not air any of his schemes to me until 
I had drawn him out concerning them. I, to borrow the 
words of Ernest’s landlady, Mrs. Jupp, “am not a very 
regular church-goer’’—I discovered upon cross-examina- 
tion that Mrs. Jupp had been to church once when she was 
churched for her son Tom some five and twenty years since, 
but never either before or afterwards; not even, I fear, to 
be married, for though she called herself “Mrs.” she wore 
no wedding ring, and spoke of the person who should have 
been Mr. Jupp as “‘my poor dear boy’s father,” not as ““my 
husband.” Butto return. I was vexed at Ernest’s having 
been ordained. I was not ordained myself and I did not 
like my friends to be ordained, nor did I like having to be 
on my best behaviour and to look as if butter would not . 
melt in my mouth, and all for a boy whom I remembered 
when he knew yesterday and to-morrow and Tuesday, but 
not a day of the week more—not even Sunday itself—and 
when he said he did not like the kitten because it had pins 
in its toes. 


The Way of All Flesh 265 
I looked at him and thought of his Aunt Alethea, and 


how fast the money she had left him was accumulating; 
and it was all to go to this young man, who would use it 
probably in the very last ways with which Miss Pontifex 
would have sympathised. I was annoyed. “She always 
said,” I thought to myself, “that she should make a mess 
of it, but I did not think she would have made as great a 
mess of it as this.” Then I thought that perhaps if his 
aunt had lived he would not have been like this. 

Ernest behaved quite nicely to me and I own that the 
fault was mine if the conversation drew towards dangerous 
subjects. I was the aggressor, presuming | suppose upon 
my age and long acquaintance with him, as giving me a 
right to make myself unpleasant in a quiet way. 

Then he came out, and the exasperating part of it was 
that up to a certain point he was so very right. Grant him 
his premises and his conclusions were sound enough, nor 
could I, seeing that he was already ordained, join issue 
with him about his premises as I should certainly have 
done if I had had a chance of doing so before he had taken 
orders. The result was that I had to beat a retreat and 
went away not in the best of humours. I believe the truth 
was that I liked Ernest, and was vexed at his being a 
clergyman, and at a clergyman having so much money 
coming to him. 

I talked a little with Mrs. Jupp on my way out. She 
and | had reckoned one another up at first sight as being 
neither of us “‘very regular church-goers,” and the strings 
of her tongue had been loosened. She said Ernest would 
die. He was much too good for the world and he looked 
so sad “just like young Watkins of the ‘Crown’ over the 
way who died a month ago, and his poor dear skin was 
white as alablaster; least-ways they say he shot hisself. 
They took him from the Mortimer, I.met them just as I 
was going with my Rose to get a pint o’ four ale, and she 
had her arm in splints. She told her sister she wanted to 
go to Perry’s to get some wool, instead o’ which it was 


266 The Way of All Flesh 


only a stall to get me a pint o’ ale, bless her heart; there’s 
nobody else would do that much for poor old Jupp, and 
it’s a horrid lie to say she is gay; not but what I like a 
gay woman, I do: I’d rather give a gay woman half-a- 
crown than stand a modest woman a pot o’ beer, but [ 
don’t want to go associating with bad girls for all that. 
So they took him from the Mortimer; they wouldn’t let 
him go home no more; and he done it that artful, you 
know. His wife was in the country living with her mother, 
and she always spoke respectful o’ my Rose. Poor dear, I 
hope his soul is in Heaven. Well, sir, would you believe it, 
there’s that in Mr. Pontifex’s face which is just like young 
Watkins; he looks that worrited and scrunched up at times, 
but it’s never for the same reason, for he don’t know noth- 
ing at all, no more than a unborn babe, no he don’t; why 
there’s not a monkey going about London with an Italian 
organ grinder but knows more than Mr. Pontifex do. He 
don’t know—well I suppose 

Here a child came in on an errand from some neighbour 
and interrupted her, or I can form no idea where or when 
she would have ended her discourse. I seized the oppor- 
tunity to run away, but not before I had given her five 
shillings and made her write down my address, for I was a 
little frightened by what she said. I told her if she thought 
her lodger grew worse, she was to come and let me 
know. 

Weeks went by and I did not see her again. Having 
done as much as [ had, I felt absolved from doing more, 
and let Ernest alone as thinking that he and I should only 
bore one another. 

He had now been ordained a little over four months, but 
these months had not brought happiness or satisfaction 
with them. He had lived in a clergyman’s house all his 
life, and might have been expected perhaps to have known 
pretty much what being a clergyman was like, and so he 
did—a country clergyman; he had formed an ideal, how- 
ever, as regards what a town clergyman could do, and was 





The Way of All Flesh 267 


trying in a feeble, tentative way to realise it, but somehow 
or other it always managed to escape him. 

He lived among the poor, but he did not find that he got 
to know them. The idea that they would come to him 
proved to be a mistaken one. He did indeed visit a few 
tame pets whom his rector desired him to look after. There 
was an old man and his wife who lived next door but one 
to Ernest himself; then there was a plumber of the name of 
Chesterfield; an aged lady of the name of Gover, blind and 
bed-ridden, who munched and munched her feeble old 
toothless jaws as Ernest spoke or read to her, but who 
could do little more; a Mr. Brookes, a rag and bottle mer- 
chant in birdsey’s Rents, in the last stage of dropsy, and 
perhaps half a dozen or so others. What did it all come to, 
when he did go to see them! [he plumber wanted to be 
flattered, and liked fooling a gentleman into wasting his 
time by scratching his ears for him. Mrs. Gover, poor old 
woman, wanted money; she was very good and meek, and 
when Ernest got her a shilling from Lady Anne Jones’s be- 
quest, she said it was ‘‘small but seasonable,”’ and munched 
and munched in gratitude. Ernest sometimes gave her a 
little money himself, but not, as he says now, half what he 
ought to have given. 

What could he do else that would have been of the 
smallest use to her? Nothing indeed; but giving occasional 
half-crowns to Mrs. Gover was not regenerating the uni- 
verse, and Ernest wanted nothing short of this. The world 
was all out of joint, and instead of feeling it to be a cursed 
spite that he was born to set it right, he thought he was 
just the kind of person that was wanted for the job, and 
was eager to set to work, only he did not exactly know how 
to begin, for the beginning he had made with Mr. Chester- 
field and Mrs. Gover did not promise great develop- 
ments. 

Then poor Mr. Brookes—he suffered very much, terribly 
indeed; he was not in want of money; he wanted to die 
and couldn’t, just as we sometimes want to go to sleep and 


268 The Way of All Flesh 


cannot. He had been a serious-minded man, and death 
frightened him as it must frighten anyone who believes 
that all his most secret thoughts will be shortly exposed in 
public. When I read Ernest the description of how his 
father used to visit Mrs. Thompson at Battersby, he 
coloured and said—‘‘’That’s just what I used to say to Mr. 
Brookes.” Ernest felt that his visits, so far from comfort- 
ing Mr. Brookes, made him fear death more and more, but 
how could he help it? 

Even Pryer, who had been a curate a couple of years, did 
not know personally more than a couple of hundred people 
in the parish at the outside, and it was only at the houses 
of very few of these that he ever visited, but then Pryer 
had such a strong objection on principle to house visita- 
tions. What a drop in the sea were those with whom he 
and Pryer were brought into direct communication in 
comparison with those whom he must reach and move if 
he were to produce much effect of any kind, one way or 
the other. Why there were between fifteen and twenty 
thousand poor in the parish, of whom but the merest 
fraction ever attended a place of worship. Some few went 
to dissenting chapels, a few were Roman Catholics; by 
far the greater number, however, were practically infidels, 
if not actively hostile, at any rate indifferent to religion, 
while many were avowed Atheists—admirers of Tom Paine, 
of whom he now heard for the first time, but he never met 
and conversed with any of these. 

Was he really doing everything that could be expected 
of him? It was all very well to say that he was doing as 
much as other young clergymen did; that was not the kind 
of answer which Jesus Christ was likely to accept; why, 
the Pharisees themselves in all probability did as much as 
the other Pharisees did. What he should do was to go in- 
to the highways and byways, and compel people to come 
-in. Was he doing this? Or were not they rather compel- 
ling him to keep out—outside their doors at any rate? 
He began to have an uneasy feeling as though ere long, 


The Way of All Flesh 269 


unless he kept a sharp lookout, he should drift into being 
a sham. 

True, all would be changed as soon as he could endow 
the College for Spiritual Pathology; matters, however, 
had not gone too well with “the things that people bought 
in the place that was called the Stock Exchange.” In 
order to get on faster, it had been arranged that Ernest 
should buy more of these things than he could pay for, 
with the idea that in a few weeks, or even days, they 
would be much higher in value, and he could sell them at a 
tremendous profit; but, unfortunately, instead of getting 
higher, they had fallen immediately after Ernest had 
bought, and obstinately refused to get up again, so, after 
a few settlements, he had got frightened, for he read an 
article in some newspaper, which said they would go ever 
so much lower, and, contrary to Pryer’s advice, he in- 
sisted on selling—at a loss of something like £500. He 
had hardly sold when up went the shares again, and he saw 
how foolish he had been, and how wise Pryer was, for if 
Pryer’s advice had been followed, he would have made 
£500, instead of losing it. However, he told himself, he 
must live and learn. 

Then Pryer made a mistake. They had bought some 
shares, and the shares went up delightfully for about a 
fortnight. This was a happy time indeed, for by the end 
of a fortnight the lost £500 had been recovered, and three 
or four hundred pounds had been cleared into the bargain. 
All the feverish anxiety of that miserable six weeks, when 
the £500 was being lost, was now being repaid with in- 
terest. Ernest wanted to sell and make sure of the profit, 
but Pryer would not hear of it; they would go ever so 
much higher yet, and he showed Ernest an article in some 
newspaper which proved that what he said was reasonable, 
and they did go up a little—but only a very little, for then 
they went down, down, and Ernest saw first his clear profit 
of three or four hundred pounds go, and then the £500 
loss, which he thought he had recovered, slipped away by 


270 The Way of All Flesh 


falls of a half and one at a time, and then he lost £200 
more. Then a newspaper said that these shares were the 
greatest rubbish that had ever been imposed upon the 
English public, and Ernest could stand it no longer, so he 
sold out, again this time against Pryer’s advice, so that 
when they went up, as they shortly did, Pryer scored off 
Ernest a second time. 

Ernest was not used to vicissitudes of this kind, and they 
made him so anxious that his health was affected. It was 
arranged therefore that he had better know nothing of 
what was being done. Pryer was a much better man of 
business than he was, and would see to it all. This re- 
lieved Ernest of a good deal of trouble, and was better 
after all for the investments themselves; for, as Pryer 
justly said, a man must not have a faint heart if he hopes 
to succeed in buying and selling upon the Stock Exchange, 
and seeing Ernest nervous made Pryer nervous too—at 
least, he said it did. So the money drifted more and more © 
into Pryer’s hands. As for Pryer himself, he had nothing 
but his curacy and a small allowance from his father. 

Some of Ernest’s old friends got an inkling from his 
letters of what he was doing, and did their utmost to dis- 
suade him, but he was as infatuated as a young lover of 
two and twenty. Finding that these friends disapproved 
he dropped away from them, and they, being bored with 
his egotism and high-flown ideas, were not sorry to let him 
do so. Of course, he said nothing about his speculations— 
indeed, he hardly knew that anything done in so good a 
cause could be called speculation. At Battersby, when his 
father urged him to look out for a next presentation, and 
even brought one or two promising ones under his notice, 
he made objections and excuses, though always promising 
to do as his father desired very shortly. 


CBAP EN LYE 


By and by a subtle, indefinable malaise began to take pos- 
session of him. I once saw a very young foal trying to eat 


The Way of All Flesh Q71 


some most objectionable refuse, and unable to make up 
its mind whether it was good or no. Clearly it wanted to 
be told. If its mother had seen what it was doing she 
would have set it right in a moment, and as soon as ever 
it had been told that what it was eating was filth, the foal 
would have recognised it and never have wanted to be 
told again; but the foal could not settle the matter for it- 
self, or make up its mind whether it liked what it was try- 
ing to eat or no, without assistance from without. I 
suppose it would have come to do so by and by, but it was 
wasting time and trouble, which a single look from its 
mother would have saved, just as wort will in time fer- 
ment of itself, but will ferment much more quickly if 
a little yeast be added to it. In the matter of knowing 
what gives us pleasure we are all like wort, and if un- 
aided from without can only ferment slowly and toil- 
somely. 

My unhappy hero about this time was very much like 
the foal, or rather he felt much what the foal would have 
felt if its mother and all the other grown-up horses in the 
field had vowed that what it was eating was the most ex- 
cellent and nutritious food to be found anywhere. He was 
so anxious to do what was right, and so ready to believe 
that every one knew better than himself, that he never ven- 
tured to admit to himself that he might be all the while 
on a hopelessly wrong track. It did not occur to him that 
there might be a blunder anywhere, much less did it occur 
to him to try and find out where the blunder was. Never- 
theless he became daily more full of malaise, and daily, 
only he knew it not, more ripe for an explosion should a 
spark fall upon him. 

One thing, however, did begin to loom out of the general 
vagueness, and to this he instinctively turned as trying to 
seize it—I mean, the fact that he was saving very few 
souls, whereas there were thousands and thousands being 
lost hourly all around him which a little energy such as 
Mr. Hawke’s might save. Day after day went by, and 


972 The Way of All Flesh 


what was he doing? Standing on professional etiquette, 
and praying that his shares might go up and down as he 
wanted them, so that they might give him money enough 
to enable him to regenerate the universe. But in the mean- 
time the people were dying. How many souls would not be 
doomed to endless ages of the most frightful torments that ° 
the mind could think of, before he could bring his spirit- 
ual pathology engine to bear upon them? Why might he 
not stand and preach as he saw the Dissenters doing 
sometimes in Lincoln’s Inn Fields and other thoroughfares? 
He could say all that Mr. Hawke had said. Mr. Hawke 
was a very poor creature in Ernest’s eyes now, for he was 
a Low Churchman, but we should not be above learning 
from anyone, and surely he could affect his hearers as 
powerfully as Mr. Hawke had affected him if he only 
had the courage to set to work. The people whom 
he saw preaching in the squares sometimes drew large 
audiences. He could at any rate preach better than 
they. 

Ernest broached this to Pryer, who treated it as some- 
thing too outrageous to be even thought of. Nothing, he 
said, could more tend to lower the dignity of the clergy 
and bring the Church into contempt. His manner was 
brusque, and even rude. 

Ernest ventured a little mild dissent; he admitted it 
was not usual, but something at any rate must be done, 
and that quickly. This was how Wesley and Whitefield 
had begun that great movement which had kindled re- 
ligious life in the minds of hundreds of thousands. This 
was no time to be standing on dignity. It was just because 
Wesley and Whitefield had done what the Church would 
not that they had won men to follow them whom the 
Church had now lost. 

Pryer eyed Ernest searchingly, and after a pause said, 
“1 don’t know what to make of you, Pontifex; you are at 
once so very right and so very wrong. I agree with you 
heartily that something should be done, but it must not be 


The Way of All Flesh Q73 


done in a way which experience has shown leads to noth- 
ing but fanaticism and dissent. Do you approve of these 
Wesleyans? Do you hold your ordination vows so cheaply 
as to think that it does not matter whether the services of 
the Church are performed in her churches and with all 
due ceremony or not? If you do—then, frankly, you had 
no business to be ordained; if you do not, then remember 
that one of the first duties of a young deacon is obedience 
to authority. Neither the Catholic Church, nor yet the 
Church of England allows her clergy to preach in the streets 
of cities where there is no lack of churches.” 

Ernest felt the force of this, and Pryer saw that he 
wavered. 

“We are living,”’ he continued more genially, “‘in an age 
of transition, and in a country which, though it has gained 
much by the Reformation, does not perceive how much it 
has also lost. You cannot and must not hawk Christ about 
in the streets as though you were in a heathen country 
whose inhabitants had never heard of him. ‘The people 
here in London have had ample warning. Every church 
they pass is a protest to them against their lives, and a call 
to them to repent. Every church-bell they hear is a wit- 
ness against them, every one of those whom they meet on 
Sundays going to or from church is a warning voice coming 
from God. If these countless influences produce no effect 
upon them, neither will the few transient words which they 
would hear from you. You are like Dives, and think that 
if one rose from the dead they would hear him. Perhaps 
they might; but then you cannot pretend that you have 
risen from the dead.”’ 

Though the last few words were spoken laughingly, there 
was a sub-sneer about them which made Ernest wince; but 
he was quite subdued, and so the conversation ended. It 
left Ernest, however, not for the first time, consciously dis- 
satished with Pryer, and inclined to set his friend’s opinion 
on one side—not openly, but quietly, and without telling 
Pryer anything about it. 


¢ 


274 The Way of All Flesh 


CHAPTER LVII 


He had hardly parted from Pryer before there occurred 
another incident which strengthened his discontent. He 
had fallen, as I have shown, among a gang of spiritual 
thieves or coiners, who passed the basest metal upon him 
without his finding it out, so childish and inexperienced 
was he in the ways of anything but those back eddies of 
the world, schools and universities. Among the bad three- 
penny pieces which had been passed off upon him, and 
which hé kept for small hourly disbursement, was a remark 
that poor people were much nicer than the richer and 
better educated. Ernest now said that he always travelled 
third class not because it was cheaper, but because the 
people whom he met in third class carriages were so much 
pleasanter and better behaved. As for the young men who 
attended Ernest’s evening classes, they were pronounced 
to be more intelligent and better ordered generally than 
the average run of Oxford and Cambridge men. Our 
foolish young friend having heard Pryer talk to this effect, 
caught up all he said and reproduced it more suo. 

One evening, however, about this time, whom should he 
see coming along a small street not far from his own but, 
of all persons in the world, Towneley, looking as full of 
life and good spirits as ever, and if possible even handsomer 
than he had been at Cambridge. Much as Ernest liked 
him he found himself shrinking from speaking to him, and 
was endeavouring to pass him without doing so when 
Towneley saw him and stopped him at once, being pleased 
to see an old Cambridge face. He seemed for the moment 
a little confused at being seen in such a neighbourhood, but 
recovered himself so soon that Ernest hardly noticed it, and 
then plunged into a few kindly remarks about old times. 
Ernest felt that he quailed as he saw Towneley’s eye wan- 
der to his white necktie and saw that he was being reckoned 
up, and rather disapprovingly reckoned up, as a parson. 


The Way of All Flesh Q75 


It was the merest passing shade upon Towneley’s face, 
but Ernest had felt it. 

‘Towneley said a few words of common form to Ernest 
about his profession as being what he thought would be 
most likely to interest him, and Ernest, still confused and 
shy, gave him for lack of something better to say his little 
threepenny-bit about poor people being so very nice. 
Towneley took this for what it was worth and nodded as- 
sent, whereon Ernest imprudently went further, and said, 
“Don’t you like poor people very much yourself?” 

Towneley gave his face a comical but good-natured 
screw, and said quietly, but slowly and decidedly, “‘No, no, 
no,” and escaped. 

It was all over with Ernest from that moment. As usual 
he did not know it, but he had entered none the less upon 
another reaction. —Towneley had just taken Ernest’s three- 
penny-bit into his hands, looked at it and returned it to 
him as a bad one. Why did he see in a moment that it 
was a bad one now, though he had been unable to see it 
when he had taken it from Pryer? Of course some poor 
people were very nice, and always would be so, but as 
though scales had fallen suddenly from his eyes he saw that 
no one was nicer for being poor, and that between the up- 
per and lower classes there was a gulf which amounted 
practically to an impassable barrier. 

That evening he reflected a good deal. If Towneley was 
right, and Ernest felt that the “No” had applied not to the 
remark about poor people only, but to the whole scheme 
and scope of his own recently adopted ideas, he and Pryer 
must surely be on a wrong track. Towneley had not ar- 
gued with him; he had said one word only, and that one of 
the shortest in the language, but Ernest was in a fit state 
for inoculation, and the minute particle of virus set about 
working immediately. 

Which did he now think was most likely to have taken 
the juster view of life and things, and whom would it be 
best to imitate, Towneley or Pryer? His heart returned 


276 The Way of All Flesh 


answer to itself without a moment’s hesitation. The faces 
of men like Towneley were open and kindly; they looked 
as if at ease themselves, and as though they would set all 
who had to do with them at ease as far as might be. The 
faces of Pryer and his friends were not like this. Why had 
he felt tacitly rebuked as soon as he had met Towneley? 
Was he not a Christian? Certainly; he believed in the 
Church of England as a matter of course. Then how could 
he be himself wrong in trying to act up to the faith that he 
and Towneley held in common? He was trying to lead a 
quiet, unobtrusive life of self-devotion, whereas Towneley 
was not, so far as he could see, trying to do anything of 
the kind; he was only trying to get on comfortably in the 
world, and to look and be as nice as possible. And he 
was nice, and Ernest knew that such men as himself 
and Pryer were not nice, and his old dejection came over 
him. 

Then came an even worse reflection; how if he had fallen 
among material thieves as well as spiritual ones? He knew 
very little of how his money was going on; he had put it all 
now into Pryer’s hands, and though Pryer gave him cash to 
spend whenever he wanted it, he seemed impatient of being 
questioned as to what was being done with the principal. 
It was part of the understanding, he said, that that was to 
be left to him, and Ernest had better stick to this, or he, 
Pryer, would throw up the College of Spiritual Pathology 
altogether; and so Ernest was cowed into acquiescence, or 
cajoled, according to the humour in which Pryer saw him 
to be. Ernest thought that further questions would look as 
if he doubted Pryer’s word, and also that he had gone too 
far to be able to recede in decency or honour. This, how- 
ever, he felt was riding out to meet trouble unnecessarily. 
Pryer had been a little impatient, but he was a gentleman 
and an admirable man of business, so his money would 
doubtless come back to him all right some day. 

Ernest comforted himself as regards this last source of 
anxiety, but as regards the other, he began to feel as though 


The Way of All Flesh O77 


if he was to be saved, a good Samaritan must hurry up 
from somewhere—he knew not whence. 


CHAPTER LVIUI 


Next day he felt stronger again. He had been listening 
to the voice of the evil one on the night before, and would 
parley no more with such thoughts. He had chosen his 
profession, and his duty was to persevere with it. If he 
was unhappy it was probably because he was not giving 
up all for Christ. Let him see whether he could not do 
more than he was doing now, and then perhaps a light 
would be shed upon his path. 

It was all very well to have made the discovery that he 
didn’t very much like poor people, but he had got to put 
up with them, for it was among them that his work must 
lie. Such men as Towneley were very kind and considerate, 
but he knew well enough it was only on condition that he 
did not preach to them. He could manage the poor better, 
and, let Pryer sneer as he liked, he was resolved to go more 
among them, and try the effect of bringing Christ to them 
if they would not come and seek Christ of themselves. He 
would begin with his own house. 

Who then should he take first? Surely he could not do 
better than begin with the tailor who lived immediately 
over his head. This would be desirable, not only because 
he was the one who seemed to stand most in need of con- 
version, but also because, if he were once converted, he 
would no longer beat his wife at two o’clock in the morn- 
ing, and the house would be much pleasanter in conse- 
quence. He would therefore go upstairs at once, and have 
a quiet talk with this man. 

Before doing so, he thought it would be well if he were 
to draw up something like a plan of a campaign; he there- 
fore reflected over some pretty conversations which would 
do very nicely if Mr. Holt would be kind enough to make 
the answers proposed for him in their proper places. But 


278 The Way of All Flesh 


the man was a great hulking fellow, of a savage temper, 
and Ernest was forced to admit that unforeseen develop-. 
ments might arise to disconcert him. They say it takes 
nine tailors to make a man, but Ernest felt that it would 
take at least nine Ernests to make a Mr. Holt. How if, as 
soon as Ernest came in, the tailor were to become violent 
and abusive? What could he do? Mr. Holt was in his own 
lodgings, and had a right to be undisturbed. A legal right, 
yes, but had he a moral right? Ernest thought not, con- 
sidering his mode of life. But put this on one side; if the 
man were to be violent, what should he do? Paul had 
fought with wild beasts at Ephesus—that must indeed 
have been awful—but perhaps they were not very wild 
wild beasts; a rabbit and a canary are wild beasts; but, 
formidable or not as wild beasts go, they would, neverthe- 
less, stand no chance against St. Paul, for he was inspired; 
the miracle would have been if the wild beasts escaped, not 
that St. Paul should have done so; but, however all this 
might be, Ernest felt that he dared not begin to convert 
Mr. Holt by fighting him. Why, when he had heard Mrs. 
Holt screaming “‘murder,’”’ he had cowered under the bed 
clothes and waited, expecting to hear the blood dripping 
through the ceiling on to his own floor. His imagination 
translated every sound into a pat, pat, pat, and once or 
twice he thought he had felt it dropping on to his counter- 
pane, but he had never gone upstairs to try and rescue poor 
Mrs. Holt. Happily it had proved next morning that ei 

Holt was in her usual health. 

Ernest was in despair about hitting on any good way 
of opening up spiritual communication with his neighbour, 
when it occurred to him that he had better perhaps begin 
by going upstairs, and knocking very gently at Mr. Holt’s 
door. He would then resign himself to the guidance of the 
Holy Spirit, and act as the occasion, which, I suppose, was 
another name for the Holy Spirit, suggested. Triply armed 
with this reflection, he mounted the stairs quite jauntily, 
and was about to knock when he heard Holt’s voice inside 


The Way of All Flesh 279 


swearing savagely at his wife. This made him pause to 
think whether after all the moment was an auspicious one, 
and while he was thus pausing, Mr. Holt, who had heard 
that someone was on the stairs, opened the door and put 
his head out. When he saw Ernest, he made an unpleasant, 
not to say offensive movement, which might or might not 
have been directed at Ernest, and looked altogether so 
ugly that my hero had an instantaneous and unequivocal 
revelation from the Holy Spirit to the effect that he should 
continue his journey upstairs at once, as though he had 
never intended arresting it at Mr. Holt’s room, and begin 
by converting Mr. and Mrs. Baxter, the Methodists in the 
top floor front. So this was what he did. 

These good people received him with open arms, and 
were quite ready to talk. He was beginning to convert 
them from Methodism to the Church of England, when all 
at once he found himself embarrassed by discovering that 
he did not know what he was to convert them from. He 
knew the Church of England, or thought he did, but he 
knew nothing of Methodism beyond its name. When he 
found that, according to Mr. Baxter, the Wesleyans had a 
vigorous system of Church discipline (which worked ad- 
mirably in practice) it appeared to him that John Wesley 
had anticipated the spiritual engine which he and Pryer 
were preparing, and when he left the room he was aware 
that he had caught more of a spiritual Tartar than he had 
expected. But he must certainly explain to Pryer that the 
Wesleyans had a system of Church discipline. This was 
very important. 

Mr. Baxter advised Ernest on no account to meddle with 
Mr. Holt, and Ernest was much relieved at the advice. If 
an opportunity arose of touching the man’s heart, he would 
take it; he would pat the children on the head when he 
saw them on the stairs, and ingratiate himself with them as 
far as he dared; they were sturdy youngsters, and Ernest 
was afraid even of them, for they were ready with their 
tongues, and knew much for their ages. Ernest felt that 


280 The Way of All Flesh 


it would indeed be almost better for him that a millstone 
should be hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, 
than that he should offend one of the little Holts. How- 
ever, he would try not to offend them; perhaps an occa- 
sional penny or two might square them. ‘This was as 
much as he could do, for he saw that the attempt to be in- 
stant out of season, as well as in season, would, St. Paul’s 
injunction notwithstanding, end in failure. 

Mrs. Baxter gave a very bad account of Miss Emily 
Snow, who lodged in the second floor back next to Mr. 
Holt. Her story was quite different from that of Mrs. 
Jupp, the landlady. She would doubtless be only too glad 
to receive Ernest’s ministrations or those of any other 
gentleman, but she was no governess, she was in the ballet 
at Drury Lane, and besides this, she was a very bad young 
woman, and if Mrs. Baxter was landlady would not be 
allowed to stay in the house a single hour, not she indeed. 

Miss Maitland in the next room to Mrs. Baxter’s own 
was a quiet and respectable young woman to all appear- 
ance; Mrs. Baxter had never known of any goings on in 
that quarter, but, bless you, still waters run deep, and 
these girls were all alike, one as bad as the other. She 
was out at all kinds of hours, and when you knew that you 
knew all. 

Ernest did not pay much heed to these aspersions of 
Mrs. Baxter’s. Mrs. Jupp had got round the greater num- 
ber of his many blind sides, and had warned him not to 
believe Mrs. Baxter, whose lip she said was something 
awful. 

Ernest had heard that women were always jealous of 
one another, and certainly these young women were more 
attractive than Mrs. Baxter was, so jealousy was probably 
at the bottom of it. If they were maligned there could be 
no objection to his making their acquaintance; if not 
maligned they had all the more need of his ministrations. 
He would reclaim them at once. 

He told Mrs. Jupp of his intention. Mrs. Jupp at first 


The Way of All Flesh 281 


tried to dissuade him, but seeing him resolute, suggested 
that she should herself see Miss Snow first, so as to prepare 
her and prevent her from being alarmed by his visit. She 
was not at home now, but in the course of the next day, it 
should be arranged. In the meantime he had better try 
Mr. Shaw, the tinker, in the front kitchen. Mrs. Baxter 
had told Ernest that Mr. Shaw was from the North Coun- 
try, and an avowed freethinker; he would probably, she 
said, rather like a visit, but she did not think Ernest would 
stand much chance of making a convert of him. 


CHARTER SELX 


BEFORE going down into the kitchen to convert the 
tinker Ernest ran hurriedly over his analysis of Paley’s evi- 
dences, and put into his pocket a copy of Archbishop 
Whateley’s ‘Historic Doubts.”’ Then he descended the 
dark, rotten old stairs and knocked at the tinker’s door. 
Mr. Shaw was very civil; he said he was rather throng just 
now, but if Ernest did not mind the sound of hammering 
he should be very glad of a talk with him. Our hero, as- 
senting to this, ere long led the conversation to Whateley’s 
“Historic Doubts’’—a work which, as the reader may 
know, pretends to show that there never was any such per- 
son as Napoleon Buonaparte, and thus satirises the argu- 
ments of those who have attacked the Christian miracles. 

Mr. Shaw said he knew “Historic Doubts”’ very well. 

“And what do you think of it?” said Ernest, who re- 
garded the pamphlet as a masterpiece of wit and cogency. 

“If you really want to know,” said Mr. Shaw, with a 
sly twinkle, “I think that he who was so willing and able 
to prove that what was was not, would be equally able and 
willing to make a case for thinking that what was not was, 
if it suited his purpose.” Ernest was very much taken 
aback. How was it that all the clever people of Cambridge ~ 
had never put him up to this simple rejoinder? The answer 
is easy: they did not develop it for the same reason that a 


282 The Way of All Flesh 


hen had never developed webbed feet—that is to say, be- 
cause they did not want to do so; but this was before the 
days of Evolution, and Ernest could not as yet know any- 
thing of the great principle that underlies it. 

“You see,” continued Mr. Shaw, ‘‘these writers all get 
their living by writing in a certain way, and the more they 
write in that way, the more they are likely to get on. You 
should not call them dishonest for this any more than a 
judge should call a barrister dishonest for earning his living 
by defending one in whose innocence he does not seriously 
believe; but you should hear the barrister on the other side 
before you decide upon the case.” 

This was another facer. Ernest could only stammer that 
he had endeavoured to examine these questions as carefully 
as he could. 

“You think you have,” said Mr. Shaw; “you Oxford and 
Cambridge gentlemen think you have examined every- 
thing. I have examined very little myself except the 
bottoms of old kettles and saucepans, but if you will an- 
swer me a few questions, [| will tell you whether or no you 
have examined much more than | have.” 

Ernest expressed his readiness to be questioned. 

“Then,” said the tinker, ‘‘give me the story of the Res- 
urrection of Jesus Christ as told in St. John’s gospel.” 

I am sorry to say that Ernest mixed up the four accounts 
in a deplorable manner; he even made the angel come down 
and roll away the stone and sit upon it. He was covered 
with confusion when the tinker first told him without the 
book of some of his many inaccuracies, and then verified 
his criticisms by referring to the New Testament itself. 

“Now,” said Mr. Shaw good-naturedly, ‘‘I am an old 
man and you are a young one, so perhaps you'll not mind 
my giving you a piece of advice. I like you, for I believe 
you mean well, but you’ve been real bad brought up, and 
I don’t think you have ever had so much as a chance yet. 
You know nothing of our side of the question, and I have 
just shown you that you do not know much more of your 


The Way of All Flesh 283 


own, but I think you will make a kind of Carlyle sort of a 
man some day. Now go upstairs and read the accounts of 
the Resurrection correctly without mixing them up, and 
have a clear idea of what it is that each writer tells us, then 
if you feel inclined to pay me another visit I shall be glad 
to see you, for I shall know you have made a good begin- 
ning and mean business. ‘Till then, sir, I must wish you a 
very good morning.” 

Ernest retreated abashed. An hour sufficed him to per- 
form the task enjoined upon him by Mr. Shaw; and at the 
end of that hour the “‘No, no, no,” which still sounded 
in his ears as he heard it from Towneley, came ringing 
up more loudly still from the very pages of the Bible it- 
self, and in respect of the most important of all the events 
which are recorded in it. Surely Ernest’s first day’s 
attempt at more promiscuous visiting, and at carrying 
out his principles more thoroughly, had not been unfruitful. 
But he must go and have a talk with Pryer. He therefore 
got his lunch and went to Pryer’s lodgings. Pryer not 
being at home, he lounged to the British Museum Read- 
ing Room, then recently opened, sent for the “ Vestiges 
of Creation,” which he had never yet seen, and spent the 
rest of the afternoon in reading it. 

Ernest did not see Pryer on the day of his conversation 
with Mr. Shaw, but he did so next morning and found him 
in a good temper, which of late he had rarely been. Some- 
times, indeed, he had behaved to Ernest in a way which 
did not bode well for the harmony with which the College 
of Spiritual Pathology would work when it had once been 
founded. It almost seemed as though he were trying to 
get a complete moral ascendency over him, so as to make 
him a creature of his own. 

He did not think it possible that he could go too far, 
and, indeed, when I reflect upon my hero’s folly and in- 
experience, there is much to be said in excuse for the con- 
clusion which Pryer came to. 

As a matter of fact, however, it was not so. Ernest’s 


284 The Way of All Flesh 


faith in Pryer had been too great to be shaken down all 
in a moment, but it had been weakened lately more than 
once. Ernest had fought hard against allowing himself 
to see this, nevertheless any third person who knew the 
pair would have been able to see that the connection be- 
tween the two might end at any moment, for when the 
time for one of Ernest’s snipe-like changes of flight came, 
he was quick in making it; the time, however, was not yet 
come, and the intimacy between the two was apparently all 
that it had ever been. It was only that horrid money busi- 
ness (so said Ernest to himself) that caused any unpleas- 
antness between them, and no doubt Pryer was right, 
and he, Ernest, much too nervous. However, that might 
stand over for the present. 

In like manner, though he had received a shock by rea- 
son of his conversation with Mr. Shaw, and by looking 
at the ‘“‘Vestiges,” he was as yet too much stunned to 
realise the change which was coming over him. In each 
case the momentum of old habits carried him forward 
in the old direction. He therefore called on Pryer, and 
spent an hour and more with him. 

He did not say that he had been visiting among his 
neighbours; this to Pryer would have been like a red rag 
to a bull. He only talked in much his usual vein about the 
proposed College, the lamentable want of interest in spirit- 
ual things which was characteristic of modern society, 
and other kindred matters; he concluded by saying that 
for the present he feared Pryer was indeed right, and that 
nothing could be done. 

“As regards the laity,” said Pryer, “nothing; not until 
we have a discipline which we can enforce with pains and 
penalties. How can a sheep dog work a flock of sheep 
unless he can bite occasionally as well as bark? But as 
regards ourselves we can do much.” 

Pryer’s manner was strange throughout the conversa- 
tion, as though he were thinking all the time of something 
else. His eyes wandered curiously over Ernest, as Ernest | 


The Way of All Flesh 285 


had often noticed them wander before: the words were 
about Church discipline, but somehow or other the disci- 
pline part of the story had a knack of dropping out after 
having been again and again emphatically declared to ap- 
ply to the laity and not to the clergy: once indeed Pryer 
had pettishly exclaimed: “Oh, bother the College of Spir- 
itual Pathology.” As regards the clergy, glimpses of a 
pretty large cloven hoof kept peeping out from under the 
saintly robe of Pryer’s conversation, to the effect, that so 
long as they were theoretically perfect, practical peccadil- 
loes—or even peccadaccios, if there is such a word, were of 
less importance. He was restless, as though wanting to 
approach a subject which he did not quite venture to touch 
upon, and kept harping (he did this about every third 
day) on the wretched lack of definition concerning the 
limits of vice and virtue, and the way in which half the 
vices wanted regulating rather than prohibiting. He dwelt 
also on the advantages of complete unreserve, and hinted 
that there were mysteries into which Ernest had not yet 
been initiated, but which would enlighten him when he 
got to know them, as he would be allowed to do when his 
friends saw that he was strong enough. 

Pryer had often been like this before, but never so nearly, 
as it seemed to Ernest, coming to a point—though what 
the point was he could not fully understand. His in- 
quietude was communicating itself to Ernest, who would 
probably ere long have come to know as much as Pryer 
could tell him, but the conversation was abruptly inter- 
rupted by the appearance of a visitor. We shall never 
know how it would have ended, for this was the very last 
time that Ernest ever saw Pryer. Perhaps Pryer was going 
to break him some bad news about his speculations. 


CHARTER Lx 


ERNEST now went home and occupied himself till luncheon 
with studying Dean Alford’s notes upon the various 


286 ‘The Way of All Flesh 


Evangelistic records of the Resurrection, doing as Mr. 
Shaw had told him, and trying to find out, not that they 
were all accurate, but whether they were all accurate or 
no. He did not care which result he should arrive at, but 
he was resolved that he would reach one or the other. 
When he had finished Dean Alford’s notes he found them 
come to this, namely, that no one yet had succeeded in 
bringing the four accounts into tolerable harmony with 
each other, and that the Dean, seeing no chance of suc- 
ceeding better than his predecessors had done, recom- 
mended that the whole story should be taken on trust— 
and this Ernest was not prepared to do. 

He got his luncheon, went out for a long walk, and re- 
turned to dinner at half past six. While Mrs. Jupp was 
getting him his dinner—a steak and a pint of stout—she 
told him that Miss Snow would be very happy to see him 
in about an hour’s time. This disconcerted him, for his 
mind was too unsettled for him to wish to convert any- 
one just then. He reflected a little, and found that, in 
spite of the sudden shock to his opinions, he was being 
irresistibly drawn to pay the visit as though nothing had 
happened. It would not look well for him not to go, for 
he was known to be in the house. He ought not to be in 
too great a hurry to change his opinions on such a matter 
as the evidence for Christ’s Resurrection all of a sudden— 
besides he need not talk to Miss Snow about this subject 
to-day—there were other things he might talk about. 
What other things? Ernest felt his heart beat fast and 
fiercely, and an inward monitor warned him that he was 
thinking of anything rather than of Miss Snow’s soul. 

What should he do? Fly, fly, fly—it was the only 
safety. But would Christ have fled? Even though Christ 
had not died and risen from the dead there could be no 
question that He was the model whose example we were 
bound to follow. Christ would not have fled from Miss 
Snow; he was sure of that, for He went about more es- 
pecially with prostitutes and disreputable people. Now 


The Way of All Flesh 287 


as then, it was the business of the true Christian to call 
not the righteous but sinners to repentance. It would be 
inconvenient to him to change his lodgings and he could 
not ask Mrs. Jupp to turn Miss Snow and Miss Maitland 
out of the house. Where was he to draw the line? Who 
would be just good enough to live in the same house with 
him, and who just not good enough? 

Besides, where were these poor girls to go? Was he to 
drive them from house to house till they had no place to 
lie in? It was absurd; his duty was clear: he would go 
and see Miss Snow at once, and try if he could not induce 
her to change her present mode of life; if he found temp- 
tation becoming too strong for him he would fly then— 
so he went upstairs with his Bible under his arm, and a 
consuming fire in his heart. 

He found Miss Snow looking very pretty in a neatly, 
not to say demurely, furnished room. I think she had 
bought an illuminated text or two, and pinned it up over 
her fireplace that morning. Ernest was very much pleased 
with her, and mechanically placed his Bible upon the 
table. He had just opened a timid conversation and was 
deep in blushes, when a hurried step came bounding up 
the stairs as though of one whom the force of gravity had 
little power, and a man burst into the room saying, “I’m 
come before my time.” It was Towneley. 

His face dropped as he caught sight of Ernest. ‘‘ What, 
you here, Pontifex! Well, upon my word!” 

I cannot describe the hurried explanations that passed 
quickly between the three—enough that in less than a 
minute Ernest, blushing more scarlet than ever, slunk off, 
Bible and all, deeply humiliated as he contrasted himself 
and Towneley. Before he had reached the bottom of the 
staircase leading to his own room he heard Towneley’s 
hearty laugh through Miss Snow’s door, and cursed the 
hour that he was born. 

Then it flashed upon him that 1f he could not see Miss 
Snow he could at any rate see Miss Maitland. He knew 


288 The Way of All Flesh 


well enough what he wanted now, and as for the Bible, he 
pushed it from him to the other end of his table. It fell 
over on the floor, and he kicked it into a corner. It was 
the Bible given him at his christening by his affectionate 
aunt, Elizabeth Allaby. True, he knew very little of Miss 
Maitland, but ignorant young fools in Ernest’s state do 
not reflect or reason closely. Mrs. Baxter had said that 
Miss Maitland and Miss Snow were birds of a feather, 
and Mrs. Baxter probably knew better than that old liar, 
Mrs. Jupp. Shakespeare says: 


O Opportunity, thy guilt is great, 

Tis thou that execut’st the traitor’s treason: 

Thou set’st the wolf where he the lamb may get; 

Whoever plots the sin, thou ’point’st the season; 

*Tis thou that spurn’st at right, at law, at reason; 
And in thy shady cell, where none may spy him, 
Sits Sin, to seize the souls that wander by him. 


If the guilt of opportunity is great, how much greater 
is the guilt of that which is believed to be opportunity 
but in reality is no opportunity at all. If the better part 
of valour is discretion, how much more is not discretion 
the better part of vice? 

About ten minutes after we last saw Ernest, a scared, 
insulted girl; flushed and trembling, was seen hurrying 
from Mrs. Jupp’s house as fast as her agitated state would 
let her, and in another ten minutes two policemen were 
seen also coming out of Mrs. Jupp’s, between whom there 
shambled rather than walked our unhappy friend Ernest, 
with staring eyes, ghastly pale, and with despair branded 
upon every line of his face. 


CHAPTER’ UXT 


PryeEr had done well to warn Ernest against promiscuous 
house to house visitation. He had not gone outside Mrs. 
Jupp’s street door, and yet what had been the result? Mr. 
Holt had put him in bodily fear; Mr. and Mrs. Baxter had 


The Way of All Flesh 289 


nearly made a Methodist of him; Mr. Shaw had under- 
mined his faith in the Resurrection; Miss Snow’s charms 
had ruined—or would have done so but for an accident— 
his moral character. As for Miss Maitland, he had done 
his best to ruin hers, and had damaged himself gravely and 
irretrievably in consequence. ‘The only lodger who had 
done him no harm was the bellows’ mender, whom he had 
not visited. 

Other young clergymen, much greater fools in many re- 
spects than he, would not have got into these scrapes. He 
seemed to have developed an aptitude for mischief almost 
from the day of his having been ordained. He could hardly 
preach without making some horrid faux pas. He preached 
one Sunday morning when the Bishop was at his Rector’s 
church, and made his sermon turn upon the question what 
kind of little cake it was that the widow of Zarephath had 
intended making when Elijah found her gathering a few 
sticks. He demonstrated that it was a seed cake. The ser- 
mon. was really very amusing, and more than once he saw 
a smile pass over the sea of faces underneath him. The 
Bishop was very angry, and gave my hero a severe repri- 
mand in the vestry after service was over; the only excuse 
he could make was that he was preaching ex tempore, had 
not thought of this particular point till he was actually in 
the pulpit, and had then been carried away by it. 

Another time he preached upon the barren fig-tree, and 
described the hopes of the owner as he watched the deli- 
cate blossom unfold, and give promise of such beautiful 
fruit in autumn. Next day he received a letter from a 
botanical member of his congregation who explained to him 
that this could hardly have been, inasmuch as the fig pro- 
duces its fruit first and blossoms inside the fruit, or so 
nearly so that no flower is perceptible to an ordinary ob- 
server. This last, however, was an accident which might 
have happened to any one but a scientist or an inspired 
writer. 

The only excuse I can make for him is that he was very 


290 The Way of All Flesh Le 


young—not yet four and twenty—and that in mind asa 
body, like most of those who in the end come to ene a 
themselves, he was a slow grower. By far the greater pz "" 
moreover, of his education had been an attempt, not so 
much to keep him in blinkers as to gouge his eyes out alto- 
gether. 

But to return to my story. It transpired afterwards that 
Miss Maitland had had no intention of giving Ernest in 
charge when she ran out of Mrs. Jupp’s house. She was 
running away because she was frightened, but almost the 
first person whom she ran against had happened to be a 
policeman of a serious turn of mind, who wished to gain a 
reputation for activity. He stopped her, questioned her, 
frightened her still more, and it was he rather than Miss 
Maitland who insisted on giving my hero in charge to him- 
self and another constable. 

Towneley was still in Mrs. Jupp’s house when the police- 
men came. He had heard a disturbance, and going down 
to Ernest’s room while Miss Maitland was out of doors, had 
found him lying, as it were, stunned at the foot of the 
moral precipice over which he had that moment fallen. He 
saw the whole thing at a glance, but before he could take 
action, the policemen came in and action became impos- 
sible. 

He asked Ernest who were his friends in London. Er- 
nest at first wanted not to say, but Towneley soon gave 
him to understand that he must do as he was bid, and se- 
lected myself from the few whom he had named. “Writes 
for the stage, does he?” said Towneley. “Does he write 
comedy?” Ernest thought Towneley meant that I ought 
to write tragedy, and said he was afraid I wrote burlesque. 
““Oh, come, come,”’ said Towneley, “that will do famously. 
I will go and see him at once.” But on second thoughts he 
determined to stay with Ernest and go with him to the 
police court. So he sent Mrs. Jupp for me. Mrs. Jupp 
hurried so fast to fetch me, that in spite of the weather’s 
being still cold she was “‘giving out,” as she expressed it, 


o y The Way of All Flesh 291 


Seicams. The poor old wretch would have taken a cab, 
but she had no money and did not like to ask Towneley to 
give her some. I saw that something very serious had 
happened, but was not prepared for anything so deplorable 
as what Mrs. Jupp actually told me. As for Mrs. Jupp, 
she said her heart had been jumping out of its socket and 
back again ever since. 

I got her into a cab with me, and we went off to the police 
station. She talked without ceasing. 

“And if the neighbours do say cruel things about me, I’m 
sure it ain’t no thanks to him if they’re true. Mr. Pontifex 
never took a bit o’ notice of me no more than if I had 
been his sister. Oh, it’s enough to make anyone’s back 
bone curdle. Then I thought perhaps my Rose might get 
on better with him, so [ set her to dust him and clean him 
as though I were busy, and gave her such a beautiful clean 
new pinny, but he never took no notice of her no more than 
he did of me, and she didn’t want no compliment neither; 
she wouldn’t have taken not a shilling from him, though he 
had offered it, but he didn’t seem to know anything at all. 
I can’t make out what the young men are a-coming to; I 
wish the horn may blow for me and the worms take me this 
very night, if it’s not enough to make a woman stand before 
God and strike the one half on ’em silly to see the way 
they goes on, and many an honest girl has to go home 
night after night without so much as a fourpenny-bit and 
paying three and sixpence a week rent, and not a shelf 
nor cupboard in the place and a dead wall in front of the 
window. 

“It’s not Mr. Pontifex,” she continued, “‘that’s so bad; 
he’s good at heart. He never says nothing unkind. And 
then there’s his dear eyes—but when [| speak about that 
to my Rose she calls me an old fool and says I ought to 
be poleaxed. It’s that Pryer as I can’t abide. Oh, he! 
He likes to wound a woman’s feelings, he do, and to chuck 
anything in her face, he do—he likes to wind a woman 
up and to wound her down.” (Mrs. Jupp pronounced 


292 The Way of All Flesh 


“wound” as though it rhymed to “sound.”) “It’s a 
gentleman’s place to soothe a woman, but he, he’d like to 
tear her hair out by handfuls. Why, he told me to my face 
that I was a-getting old; old, indeed! there’s not a woman 
in London knows my age except Mrs. Davis down in the 
Old Kent Road, and beyond a haricot vein in one of my 
legs I’m as young as ever I was. Old, indeed! There’s 
many a good tune played on an old fiddle. I hate his 
nasty insinuendos.” 

Even if I had wanted to stop her, I could not have done 
so. She said a great deal more than I have given above. 
I have left out much because I could not remember it, but 
still more because it was really impossible for me to print it. 

When we got to the police station I found Towneley and 
Ernest already there. The charge was.one of assault, but 
not aggravated by serious violence. Even so, however, it 
was lamentable enough, and we both saw that our young 
friend would have to pay dearly for his experience. We 
tried to bail him out for the night, but the Inspector would 
not accept bail, so we were forced to leave him. 

Towneley then went back to Mrs. Jupp’s to see if he 
could find Miss Maitland and arrange matters with her. 
She was not there, but he traced her to the house of her 
father, who lived at Camberwell. The father was furious 
and would not hear of any intercession on Towneley’s part. 
He was a Dissenter, and glad to make the most of any 
scandal against a clergyman; Towneley, therefore, was 
obliged to return unsuccessful. 

Next morning, Towneley—who regarded Ernest as a 
drowning man, who must be picked out of the water some- 
how or other if possible, irrespective of the way in which 
he got into it—called on me, and we put the matter into the 
hands of one of the best known attorneys of the day. I 
was greatly pleased with Towneley, and thought it due to 


him to tell him what I had told no one else. I mean that © ~ 


Ernest would come into his aunt’s money in a few years’ 
time, and would therefore then be rich. 


The Way of All Flesh 293 


Towneley was doing all he could before this, but I knew 
that the knowledge I had imparted to him would make him 
feel as though Ernest was more one of his own class, and 
had therefore a greater claim upon his offices. As for 
Ernest himself, his gratitude was greater than could be 
expressed in words. I have heard him say that he can 
call to mind many moments, each one of which might well 
pass for the happiest in his life, but that this night stands 
clearly out as the most painful that he ever passed, yet so 
kind and considerate was Towneley that it was quite bear- 
able. 

But with all the best wishes in the world neither Towne- 
ley nor I could do much to help beyond giving our moral 
support. Our attorney told us that the magistrate before 
whom Ernest would appear was very severe on cases of 
this description, and that the fact of his being a clergyman 
would tell against him. “Ask for no remand,” he said, 
“and make no defence. We will call Mr. Pontifex’s rector 
and you two gentlemen as witnesses for previous good 
character. ‘These will be enough. Let us then make a 
profound apology and beg the magistrate to deal with the 
case summarily instead of sending it for trial. If you can 
get this, believe me, your young friend will be better out 
of it than he has any right to expect.” 


CHAPTER LEXI 


THE advice, besides being obviously sensible, would end in 
saving Ernest both time and suspense of mind, so we had 
no hesitation in adopting it. The case was called on about 
eleven o’clock, but we got it adjourned till three, so as to 
give time for Ernest to set his affairs as straight as he 
could, and to execute a power of attorney enabling me to 
act for him as I should think fit while he was in prison. 
Then all came out about Pryer and the College of 
Spiritual Pathology. Ernest had even greater difficulty 
in making a clean breast of this than he had had in telling 


294 The Way of All Flesh 


us about Miss Maitland, but he told us all, and the upshot 
was that he had actually handed over to Pryer every 
half-penny that he then possessed with no other security 
than Pryer’s I. O. U’s. for the amount. Ernest, though 
‘still declining to believe that Pryer could be guilty of 
dishonourable conduct, was becoming alive to the folly 
of what he had been doing; he still made sure, however, 
of recovering, at any rate, the greater part of his property 
as soon as Pryer should have had time to sell. Towneley 
and I| were of a different opinion, but we did not say what 
we thought. 

It was dreary work waiting all the morning amid such 
unfamiliar and depressing surroundings. I thought how 
the Psalmist had exclaimed with quiet irony, “One day in 
thy courts is better than a thousand,” and I thought that 
I could utter a very similar sentiment in respect of the 
courts in which Towneley and I were compelled to loiter. 
At last, about three o’clock the case was called on, and we 
went round to the part of the court which is reserved for the 
general public, while Ernest was taken into the prisoner’s 
dock. As soon as he had collected himself sufficiently he 
recognised the magistrate as the old gentleman who had 
spoken to him in the train on the day he was leaving school, 
and saw, or thought he saw, to his great grief, that he too 
was recognised. 

Mr. Ottery, for this was our attorney’s name, took the 
line he had proposed. He called no other witnesses than 
the rector, Towneley and myself, and threw himself on 
the mercy of the magistrate. When he had concluded, the 
magistrate spoke as follows: “Ernest Pontifex, yours is one 
of the most painful cases that I have ever had to deal with. 
You have been singularly favoured in your parentage and 
education. You have had before you the example of 
blameless parents, who doubtless instilled into you from 
childhood the enormity of the offence which by your own 
confession you have committed. You were sent to one of 
the best public schools in England. It is not likely that 


The Way of All Flesh 295 


in the healthy atmosphere of such a school as Rough. 
borough you can have come across contaminating in- 
fluences; you were probably, I may say certainly, impressed 
at school with the heinousness of any attempt to depart 
from the strictest chastity until such time as you had 
entered into a state of matrimony. At Cambridge you 
were shielded from impurity by every obstacle which 
virtuous and vigilant authorities could devise, and even 
had the obstacles been fewer, your parents probably took 
care that your means should not admit of your throwing 
money away upon abandoned characters. At night proc- 
tors patrolled the street and dogged your steps if you tried 
to go into any haunt where the presence of vice was sus- 
pected. By day the females who were admitted within 
the college walls were selected mainly on the score of 
ugliness. It is hard to see what more can be done for any 
young man than this. For the last four or five months 
you have been a clergyman, and if a single impure thought 
had still remained within your mind, ordination should 
have removed it: nevertheless, not only does it appear 
that your mind is as impure as though none of the in- 
fluences to which I have referred had been brought to 
bear upon it, but it seems as though their only result 
had been this—that you have not even the common sense 
to be able to distinguish between a respectable girl and 
a prostitute. 

“If I were to take a strict view of my duty I should 
commit you for trial, but in consideration of this being 
your first offence, I shall deal leniently with you and sen- 
tence you to imprisonment with hard labour for six calen- 
dar months.” 

Towneley and I both thought there was a touch of irony 
in the magistrate’s speech, and that he could have given 
a lighter sentence if he would, but that was neither here 
nor there. We obtained leave to see Ernest for a few 
minutes before he was removed to Coldbath Fields, where 
he was to serve his term, and found him so thankful to 


296 The Way of All Flesh 


have been summarily dealt with that he hardly seemed to 
care about the miserable plight in which he was to pass the 
next six months. When he came out, he said, he would 
take what remained of his money, go off to America or 
Australia and never be heard of more. 

We left him full of this resolve, I, to write to Theobald, 
and also to instruct my solicitor to get Ernest’s money out 
of Pryer’s hands, and Towneley to see the reporters and 
keep the case out of the newspapers. He was successful as 
regards all the higher-class papers. There was only one 
journal, and that of the lowest class, which was incor- 
ruptible. 


CHAPTER LXIIl 


I saw my solicitor at once, but when I tried to write to 
Theobald, I found it better to say I would run down and 
see him. I therefore proposed this, asking him to meet 
me at the station, and hinting that I must bring bad news 
about his son. I knew he would not get my letter more 
than a couple of hours before I should see him, and thought 
the short interval of suspense might break the shock of 
what I had to say. 

Never do I remember to have halted more between two 
opinions than on my journey to Battersby upon this un- 
happy errand. When I thought of the little sallow-faced 
lad whom I had remembered years before, of the long and 
savage cruelty with which he had been treated in child- 
hood—cruelty none the less real for having been due to 
ignorance and stupidity rather than to deliberate malice; 
of the atmosphere of lying and self-laudatory hallucina- 
tion in which he had been brought up; of the readiness the 
boy had shown to love anything that would be good 
enough to let him, and of how affection for his parents, 
unless I am much mistaken, had only died in him because 
it had been killed anew, again and again and again, each 
time that it had tried to spring. When I thought of all this 
I felt as though, if the matter had rested with me, I would 


The Way of All Flesh 297 


have sentenced Theobald and Christina to mental suffering 
even more severe than that which was about to fall upon 
them. But on the other hand, when I thought of Theo- 
bald’s own childhood, of that dreadful old George Pontifex 
his father, of John and Mrs. John, and of his two sisters, 
when again I thought of Christina’s long years of hope 
deferred that maketh the heart sick, before she was mar- 
ried, of the life she must have led at Crampsford, and of 
the surroundings in the midst of which she and her hus- 
band both lived at Battersby, I felt as though the wonder 
was that misfortunes so persistent had not been followed 
by even graver retribution. 


Poor people! They tried to keep their ignorance of —— 


the world from themselves by calling it the pursuit of 
heavenly things, and than shutting their eyes to anything 
that might give them trouble. A son having been born 
to them they had shut his eyes also as far as was practic- 
able. Who could blame them? They had chapter and 
verse for everything they had either done or left undone; 
there is no better thumbed precedent than that for being 
a clergyman and a clergyman’s wife. In what respect 
had they differed from their neighbours? How did their 
household differ from that of any other clergyman of the 
better sort from one end of England to the other? Why 
then should it have been upon them, of all people in the 
world, that this tower of Siloam had fallen? 

Surely it was the tower of Siloam that was naught 
rather than those who stood under it; it was the system 
rather than the people that was at fault. If Theobald 
and his wife had but known more of the world and of the 
things that are therein they would have done little harm 
to anyone. Selfish they would have always been, but not 
more so than may very well be pardoned, and not more than 
other people would be. As it was, the case was hopeless; 
it would be no use their even entering into their mothers’ 
wombs and being born again. They must not only be 
born again but they must be born again each one of them 


298 The Way of All Flesh 


of a new father and of a new mother and of a different line 
of ancestry for many generations before their minds could 
become supple enough to learn anew. ‘The only thing to 
do with them was to humour them and make the best of 
them till they died—and be thankful when they did so. 

Theobald got my letter as I had expected, and met me 
at the station nearest to Battersby. As I walked back 
with him towards his own house I broke the news to him 
as gently as I could. I pretended that the whole thing was 
in great measure a mistake, and that though Ernest no 
doubt had had intentions which he ought to have resisted, 
he had not meant going anything like the length which 
Miss Maitland supposed. I said we had felt how much 
appearances were against him, and had-not dared to set up 
this defence before the magistrate, though we had no doubt 
about its being the true one. 

Theobald acted with a readier and acuter moral sense 
than I had given him credit for. 

“T will have nothing more to do with him,” he exclaimed 
promptly. “I will never see his face again; do not let him 
write either to me or to his mother; we know of no such 
person. Tell him you have seen me, and that from this 
day forward I shall put him out of my mind as though he 
had never been born. I have been a good father to him, 
and his mother idolised him; selfishness and ingratitude 
have been the only return we have ever had from him; 
my hope henceforth must be in my remaining children.” 

I told him how Emest’s fellow curate had got hold of 
his money, and hinted that he might very likely be penni- 
less, or nearly so, on leaving prison. Theobald did not 
seem displeased at this, but added soon afterwards: “If 
this proves to be the case, tell him from me that I will 
give him a hundred pounds if he will tell me through you 
when he will have it paid, but tell him not to write and 
thank me, and say that if he attempts to open up direct 
communication either with his mother or myself, he shall 
not have a penny of the money.” 


The Way of All Flesh 299 


Knowing what I knew, and having determined on violat- 
ing Miss Pontifex’s instructions should the occasion arise, 
I did not think Ernest would be any the worse for a com- 
plete estrangement from his family, so I acquiesced more 
readily in what Theobald had proposed than that gentle- 
man may have expected. 

Thinking it better that I should not see Christina, I left 
Theobald near Battersby and walked back to the station. 
On my way I was pleased to reflect that Ernest’s father 
was less of a fool than I had taken him to be, and had 
the greater hopes, therefore, that his son’s blunders might 
be due to postnatal, rather than congenital misfortunes. 
Accidents which happen to a man before he is born, in 
the persons of his ancestors, will, if he remembers them 
at all, leave an indelible impression on him; they will have 
moulded his character so that, do what he will, it is hardly 
possible for him to escape their consequences. If a man 
is to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven, he must do so, not 
only as a little child, but as a little embryo, or rather as a 
little zoosperm—and not only this, but as one that has 
come of zoosperms which have entered into the Kingdom 
of Heaven before him for many generations. Accidents 
which occur for the first time, and belong to the period 
since a man’s last birth, are not, as a general rule, so 
permanent in their effects, though of course they may 
sometimes be so. At any rate, I was not displeased at the 
view which Ernest’s father took of the situation. 


CHAPTER LXIV 


AFTER Ernest had been sentenced, he was taken back to the 
cells to wait for the van which should take him to Coldbath 
Fields, where he was to serve his term. 

He was still too stunned and dazed by the suddenness 
with which events had happened during the last twenty- 
four hours to be able to realise his position. A great chasm 
had opened between his past and future; nevertheless he 


300 The Way of All Flesh 


breathed, his pulse beat, he could think and speak. It 
seemed to him that he ought to be prostrated by the blow 
that had fallen on him, but he was not prostrated; he had 
suffered from many smaller laches far more acutely. It was 
not until he thought of the pain his disgrace would inflict 
on his father and mother that he felt how readily he would 
have given up all he had, rather than have fallen into his 
present plight. It would break his mother’s heart. It 
must, he knew it would—and it was he who had done this. 

He had had a headache coming on all the forenoon, but 
as he thought of his father and mother, his pulse quickened, 
and the pain in his head suddenly became intense. He 
could hardly walk to the van, and he found its motion in- 
supportable. On reaching the prison he was too ill to 
walk without assistance across the hall to the corridor or 
gallery where prisoners are marshalled on their arrival. 
The prison warder, seeing at once that he was a clergyman, 
did not suppose he was shamming, as he might have done 
in the case of an old gaol-bird; he therefore sent for the 
doctor. When this gentleman arrived, Ernest was declared 
to be suffering from an incipient attack of brain fever, and 
was taken away tothe infirmary. Here he hovered for the 
next two months between life and death, never in full pos- 
session of his reason and often delirious, but at last, con- 
trary to the expectation of both doctor and nurse, he began 
slowly to recover. 

It is said that those who have nearly drowned find 
the return to consciousness much more painful than the 
loss of it had been, and so it was with my hero. As he lay 
helpless and feeble, it seemed to him a refinement of cruelty 
that he had not died once for all during his delirium. He 
thought he should still most likely recover only to sink a 
little later on from shame and sorrow; nevertheless from 
day to day he mended, though so slowly that he could 
hardly realise it to himself. One afternoon, however, 
about three weeks after he had regained consciousness, 
the nurse who tended him, and who had been very kind to 


The Way of All Flesh 301 


him, made some little rallying sally which amused him; he 
laughed, and as he did so she clapped her hands and told 
him he would be a man again. The spark of hope was 
kindled, and again he wished to live. Almost from that 
moment his thoughts began to turn less to the horrors of 
the past, and more to the best way of meeting the future. 

His worst pain was on behalf of his father and mother, 
and how he should again face them. It still seemed to him 
that the best thing both for him and them would be that he 
should sever himself from them completely, take whatever 
money he could recover from Pryer, and go to some place 
in the uttermost parts of the earth, where he should never 
meet anyone who had known him at school or college, and 
start afresh. Or perhaps he might go to the gold fields in 
California or Australia, of which such wonderful accounts 
were then heard; there he might even make his fortune, 
and return as an old man many years hence, unknown to 
everyone, and if so, he would live at Cambridge. As he 
built these castles in the air, the spark of life became a 
flame, and he longed for health, and for the freedom which, 
now that so much of his sentence had expired, was not after 
all very far distant. 

Then things began to shape themselves more definitely. 
Whatever happened he would be a clergyman no longer. 
It would have been practically impossible for him to have 
found another curacy, even if he had been so minded, but 
he was not so minded. He hated the life he had been lead- 
ing ever since he had begun to read for orders; he could 
not argue about it, but simply he loathed it and would have 
no more of it. As he dwelt on the prospect of becoming 
a layman again, however disgraced, he rejoiced at what 
had befallen him, and found a blessing in this very im- 
prisonment which had at first seemed such an unspeakable 
misfortune. 

Perhaps the shock of so great a change in his surround- 
ings had accelerated changes in his opinions, just as the 
cocoons of silkworms, when sent in baskets by rail, hatch 


502 The Way of All Flesh 


before their time through the novelty of heat and jolting. 
But however this may be, his belief in the stories concern- 
ing the Death, Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus Christ, 
and hence his faith in all the other Christian miracles, had 
dropped off him once and for ever. The investigation he 
had made in consequence of Mr. Shaw’s rebuke, hurried 
though it was, had left a deep impression upon him, and 
now he was well enough to read he made the New Testa- 
~ ment his chief study, going through it in the spirit which 
Mr. Shaw had desired of him, that is to say as one who 
wished neither to believe nor disbelieve, but cared only 
about finding out whether he ought to believe or no. The 
more he read in this spirit the more the balance seemed to 
lie in favour of unbelief, till, in the end, all further doubt 
became impossible, and he saw plainly that, whatever else 
might be true, the story that Christ had died, come to life 
again, and been carried from earth through clouds into the 
heavens could not now be accepted by unbiassed people. 
It was well he had found it out so soon. In one way or 
another it was sure to meet him sooner or later. He would 
probably have seen it years ago if he had not been hood- 
winked by people who were paid for hoodwinking him. 
What should he have done, he asked himself, if he had not 
made his present discovery till years later, when he was 
more deeply committed to the life of aclergyman? Should 
he have had the courage to face it, or would he not more 
probably have evolved some excellent reason for contin- 
uing to think as he had thought hitherto? Should he have 
had the courage to break away even from his present 
curacy? 

He thought not, and knew not whether to be more thank- 
ful for having been shown his error or for having been 
caught up and twisted round so that he could hardly err 
farther, almost at the very moment of his having discov- 
ered it. The price he had had to pay for this boon was 
light as compared with the boon itself. What is too heavy 
a price to pay for having duty made at once clear and 


The Way of All Flesh 303 


easy of fulfilment instead of very difficult? He was sorry 
for his father and mother, and he was sorry for Miss Mait- 
land, but he was no longer sorry for himself. 

It puzzled him, however, that he should not have known 
how much he had hated being a clergyman till now. He 
knew that he did not particularly like it, but if anyone had 
asked him whether he actually hated it, he would have 
answered no. I suppose people almost always want some- 
thing external to themselves, to reveal to them their own 
likes and dislikes. Our most assured likings have for the 
most part been arrived at neither by introspection nor by 
any process of conscious reasoning, but by the bounding 
forth of the heart to welcome the gospel proclaimed to it 
by another. We hear some say that such and such a thing 
is thus or thus, and in a moment the train that has been 
laid within us, but whose presence we knew not, flashes into 
consciousness and perception. 

Only a year ago he had bounded forth to welcome Mr. 
Hawke’s sermon; since then he had bounded after a College 
of Spiritual Pathology; now he was in full cry after ration- 
alism pure and simple; how could he be sure that his pres- 
ent state of mind would be more lasting than his previous 
ones? He could not be certain, but he felt as though he 
were now on firmer ground than he had ever been before, 
and no matter how fleeting his present opinions might 
prove to be, he could not but act according to them till he 
saw reason to change them. How impossible, he reflected, 
it would have been for him to do this, if he had remained 
surrounded by people like his father and mother, or Pryer 
and Pryer’s friends, and his rector. He had been observ- 
ing, reflecting, and assimilating all these months with no 
more consciousness of mental growth than a school-boy 
has of growth of body, but should he have been able to ad- 
mit his growth to himself, and to act up to his increased 
strength if he had remained in constant close connection 
with people who assured him solemnly that he was under a 
hallucination? The combination against him was greater 


304 The Way of All Flesh 


than his unaided strength could have broken through, and 
he felt doubtful how far any shock less severe than the one 
from which he was suffering would have sufficed to free 
him. 


CHAPTER LXV 


As he lay on his bed day after day slowly recovering, he 
woke up to the fact which most men arrive at sooner or 
later, | mean that very few care two straws about truth, 
or have any confidence that it is righter and better to 
believe what is true than what is untrue, even though be- 
lief in the untruth may seem at first sight most expedient. 
Yet it is only these few who can be said to believe anything 
at all; the rest are simply unbelievers in disguise. Perhaps, 
after all, these last are right. They have numbers and 
prosperity on their side. They have all which the ration- 
alist appeals to as his tests of right and wrong. Right, ac- 
cording to him, is what seems right to the majority of 
sensible, well-to-do people; we know of no safer criterion 
than this, but what does the decision thus arrived at in- 
volve? Simply this, that a conspiracy of silence about 
things whose truth would be immediately apparent to dis- 
interested enquirers is not only tolerable but righteous on 
the part of those who profess to be and take money for 
being par excellence guardians and teachers of truth. 
Ernest saw no logical escape from this conclusion. He 
saw that belief on the part of the early Christians in the 
miraculous nature of Christ’s Resurrection was explicable, 
without any supposition of miracle. The explanation lay 
under the eyes of anyone who chose to take a moderate 
degree of trouble; it had been put before the world again 
and again, and there had been no serious attempt to re- 
fute it. How was it that Dean Alford, for example, who 
had made the New Testament his specialty, could not or 
would not see what was so obvious to Ernest himself? 
Could it be for any other reason than that he did not 
want to see it, and if so was he not a traitor to the cause 


The Way of All Flesh 305 


of truth? Yes, but was he not also a respectable and suc- 
cessful man, and were not the vast majority of respectable 
and successful men, such for example, as all the bishops 
and archbishops, doing exactly as Dean Alford did, and 
did not this make their action right, no matter though it 
had been cannibalism or infanticide, or even habitual un- 
truthfulness of mind? 

Monstrous, odious falsehood! Ernest’s feeble pulse 
quickened and his pale face flushed as this hateful view 
of life presented itself to him in all its logical consistency. 
It was not the fact of most men being liars that shocked 
him—that was all right enough; but even the momentary 
doubt whether the few who were not liars ought not to 
become liars too. There was no hope left if this were so; if 
this were so, let him die, the sooner the better. ‘‘Lord,”’ 
he exclaimed inwardly, “‘I don’t believe one word of it. 
Strengthen Thou and confirm my disbelief.” It seemed 
to him that he could never henceforth see a bishop going 
to consecration without saying to himself: “‘There, but 
for the grace of God, went Ernest Pontifex.” It was no 
doing of his. He could not boast; if he had lived in the 
time of Christ he might himself have been an early Chris- 
tian, or even an Apostle for aught he knew. On the whole, 
he felt that he had much to be thankful for. 

The conclusion, then, that it might be better to believe 
error than truth, should be ordered out of court at once, 
no matter by how clear a logic it had been arrived at; 
but what was the alternative? It was this, that our crite- 


rion of truth—.¢., that truth is what commends itself to the,” 


great majority Bg sensible and successful _people—is not 
“infallible. The rule is sound, and covers by far the greater 
number of cases, but it has its exceptions. 

He asked himself, what were they? Ah! that was a 
dificult matter; there were so many, and the rules which 
governed them were sometimes so subtle that mistakes 
always had and always would be made; it was just this 
that made it impossible to reduce life to an exact science. 


306 The Way of All Flesh 


There was a rough-and-ready, rule-of-thumb test of truth, 
and a number of rules as regards exceptions which could 
be mastered without much trouble, yet there was a resi- 
due of cases in which decision was difficult—so difficult 
that a man had better follow his instinct than attempt to 
decide them by any process of reasoning. 

Instinct then is the ultimate court of appeal. And 
what is instinct? It is a mode of faith in the evidence 
of things not actually seen. And so my hero returned 
almost to the point from which he had started originally, 
namely, that the just shall live by faith. 

And this is what the just—that is to say reasonable peo- 
ple—do as regards those daily affairs of life which most 
concern them. They settle smaller matters by the exer- 
cise of their own deliberation. More important ones, such 
as the cure of their own bodies and the bodies of those 
whom they love, the investment of their money, the extri- 
cation of their affairs from any serious mess—these things 
they generally entrust to others of whose capacity they 
know little save from general report; they act therefore 
on the strength of faith, not of knowledge. So the Eng- 
lish nation entrusts the welfare of its fleet and naval de- 
fences to a First Lord of the Admiralty, who, not being 
a sailor, can know nothing about these matters except by 
acts of faith. There can be no doubt about faith and not 
reason being the ultima ratio. 

Even Euclid, who has laid himself as little open to the 
charge of credulity as any writer who ever lived, cannot 
get beyond this. He has no demonstrable first premise. 
He requires postulates and axioms which transcend demon- 
stration, and without which he can do nothing. His super- 
structure indeed is demonstration, but his ground is faith. 
Nor again can he get further than telling a man he is a 
fool if he persists in differing from him. He says “which 
is absurd,” and declines to discuss the matter further. 
Faith and authority, therefore, prove to be as necessary 
for him as for anyone else. “By faith in what, then,” 


— 


The Way of All Flesh 307 


asked Ernest of himself, ‘shall a just man endeavour to 
live at this present time?”? He answered to himself, “‘At 
any rate not by faith in the supernatural element of the 
Christian religion.” 

And how should he best persuade his fellow-country- 
men to leave off believing in this supernatural element? 
Looking at the matter from a practical point of view, he 
thought the Archbishop of Canterbury afforded the most 
promising key to the situation. It lay between him and the 
Pope. The Pope was perhaps the best in theory, but in prac- 
tice the Archbishop of Canterbury would do sufficiently 
well. Ifhe could only manage to sprinkle a pinch of salt, 
as it were, on the Archbishop’s tail, he might convert the 
whole Church of England to free thought by a coup de main. 
There must be an amount of cogency which even an Arch- 
bishop—an Archbishop whose perceptions had never been 
quickened by imprisonment for assault—would not be able 
to withstand. When brought face to face with the facts, 
as he, Ernest, could arrange them, his Grace would have 
no resource but to admit them; being an honourable man 
he would at once resign his Archbishopric, and Christian- 
ity would become extinct in England within a few months’ 
time. This, at any rate, was how things ought to be. 
But all the time Ernest had no confidence in the Arch- 
bishop’s not hopping off just as the pinch was about to fall 
on him, and this seemed so unfair that his blood boiled at 
the thought of it. If this was to be so, he must try if he 
could not fix him by the judicious use of bird-lime or a 
snare, or throw the salt on his tail from an ambuscade. 

To do him justice, it was not himself that he greatly 
cared about. He knew he had been humbugged, and he 
knew also that the greater part of the ills which had 
afflicted him were due, indirectly, in chief measure to the 
influence of Christian teaching; still, if the mischief had 
ended with himself, he should have thought little about 
it, but there was his sister, and his brother Joey, and 
the hundreds and thousands of young people throughout 


308 The Way of All Flesh 


| England whose lives were being blighted through the lies 
' told them by people whose business it was to know better, 
' but who scamped their work and shirked difficulties in- 
| stead of facing them. It was this which made him think it 
worth while to be angry, and to consider whether he could 
not at least do something towards saving others from 
such years of waste and misery as he had had to pass 
himself. If there was no truth in the miraculous accounts 
of Christ’s Death and Resurrection, the whole of the re- 
ligion founded upon the historic truth of those events 
tumbled to the ground. “Why,” he exclaimed, with all 
the arrogance of youth, “they put a gipsy or fortune- 
teller into prison for getting money out of silly people 
who think they have supernatural power; why should they 
not put a clergyman in prison for pretending that he can 
absolve sins, or turn bread and wine into the flesh and 
blood of One who died two thousand years ago? What,” 
he asked himself, “could be more pure ‘hanky-panky’ than 
that a bishop should lay his hands upon a young man and 
pretend to convey to him the spiritual power to work this 
miracle? It was all very well to talk about toleration; 
toleration, like everything else, had its limits; besides, if 
it was to include the bishop, let it include the fortune-teller 
too.” He would explain all this to the Archbishop of 
Canterbury by and by, but as he could not get hold of 
him just now, it occurred to him that he might experimen- 
talise advantageously upon the viler soul of the prison 
chaplain. It was only those who took the first and most 
obvious step in their power who ever did great things in 
the end, so one day, when Mr. Hughes—for this was the 
chaplain’s name—was talking with him—Ernest intro- 
duced the question of Christian evidences, and tried to 
raise a discussion upon them. Mr. Hughes had been very 
kind to him, but he was more than twice my hero’s age, 
and had long taken the measure of such objections as Er- 
nest tried to put before him. I do not suppose he believed 
in the actual objective truth of the stories about Christ’s 


The Way of All Flesh 309 


Resurrection and Ascension any more than Ernest did, 
but he knew that this was a small matter, and that the 
real issue lay much deeper than this. 

Mr. Hughes was a man who had been in authority for 
many years, and he brushed Ernest on one side as 1f he 
had been a fly. He did it so well that my hero never 
ventured to tackle him again, and confined his conversa- 
tion with him for the future to such matters as what he 
had better do when he got out of prison; and here Mr. 
Hughes was ever ready to listen to him with sympathy 
and kindness. 


CHAPTER LXVI 


ERNEST was now so far convalescent as to be able to sit 
up for the greater part of the day. He had been three 
months in prison, and, though not strong enough to leave 
the infirmary, was beyond all fear of a relapse. He was 
talking one day with Mr. Hughes about his future, and 
again expressed his intention of emigrating to Australia 
or New Zealand with the money he should recover from 
Pryer. Whenever he spoke of this he noticed that Mr. 
Hughes looked grave and was silent: he had thought that 
perhaps the chaplain wanted him to return to his pro- 
fession, and disapproved of his evident anxiety to turn 
to something else; now, however, he asked Mr. Hughes 
point blank why it was that he disapproved of his idea of 
emigrating. 

Mr. Hughes endeavoured to evade him, but Ernest was 
not to be put off. There was something in the chaplain’s 
manner which suggested that he knew more than Ernest 
did, but did not like to say it. This alarmed him so much 
that he begged him not to keep him in suspense; after a 
little hesitation Mr. Hughes, thinking him now strong 
enough to stand it, broke the news as gently as he could 
that the whole of Ernest’s money had disappeared. 

The day after my return from Battersby I called on 
my solicitor and was told that he had written to Pryer, 


310 The Way of All Flesh 


requiring him to refund the monies for which he had 
given his I.0.U.’s.  Pryer replied that he had given orders 
to his broker to close his operations, which unfortunately 
had resulted so far in heavy loss, and that the balance 
should be paid to my solicitor on the following settling day, 
then about a week distant. When the time came, we heard 
nothing from Pryer, and going to his lodgings, found that 
he had left with his few effects on the very day after 
he had heard from us, and had not been seen since. 

I had heard from Ernest the name of the broker who 
had been employed and went at once to see him. He 
told me Pryer had closed all his accounts for cash on 
the day that Ernest had been sentenced, and had received 
£2315, which was all that remained of Ernest’s original 
£5000. With this he had decamped, nor had we enough 
clue as to his whereabouts to be able to take any steps 
to recover the money. ‘There was in fact nothing to be 
done but to consider the whole as lost. J may say here 
that neither I nor Ernest ever heard of Pryer again, nor 
have any idea what became of him. 

This placed me in a difficult position. I knew, of course, 
that in a few years Ernest would have many times over 
as much money as he had lost, but I knew also that he did 
not know this, and feared that the supposed loss of all 
he had in the world might be more than he could stand 
when coupled with his other misfortunes. 

The prison authorities had found Theobald’s address 
from a letter in Ernest’s pocket, and had communicated 
with him more than once concerning his son’s illness, but 
Theobald had not written to me, and I supposed my god- 
son to be in good health. He would be just twenty-four 
years old when he left prison, and if I followed out his 
aunt’s instructions, would have to battle with fortune for 
another four years as well as he could. The question 
before me was whether it was right to let him run so 
much risk, or whether I should not to some extent trans- 
gress my instructions—which there was nothing to pre- 


The Way of All Flesh 311 


vent my doing if I thought Miss Pontifex would have 
wished it—and let him have the same sum that he would 
have recovered from Pryer. 

If my godson had been an older man, and more fixed 
in any definite groove, this is what I should have done, 
but he was still very young, and. more than commonly 
unformed for his age. If, again, I had known of his 
illness I should not have dared to lay any heavier burden 
on his back than he had to bear already; but not being 
uneasy about his health, I thought a few years of rough- 
ing it and of experience concerning the importance of 
not playing tricks with money would do him no harm. 
So I decided to keep a sharp eye upon him as soon as 
he came out of prison, and to let him splash about in 
deep water as best he could till I saw whether he was 
able to swim, or was about to sink. In the first case I 
would let him go on swimming till he was nearly eight-and 
twenty, when I would prepare him gradually for the good 
fortune that awaited him; in the second | would hurry up 
to the rescue. SoI wrote to say that Pryer had absconded, 
and that he could have £100 from his father when he 
came out of prison. I then waited to see what effect these 
tidings would have, not expecting to receive an answer 
for three months, for I had been told on enquiry that no 
letter could be received by a prisoner till after he had been 
three months in gaol. I also wrote to Theobald and told 
him of Pryer’s disappearance. 

As a matter of fact, when my letter arrived the governor 
of the gaol read it, and in case of such importance 
would have relaxed the rules if Ernest’s state had allowed 
it; his illness prevented this, and the governor left it to the 
chaplain and the doctor to break the news to him when 
they thought him strong enough to bear it, which was 
now the case. In the meantime I received a formal ofh- 
cial document saying that the letter had been received, 
and would be communicated to the prisoner in due course; 
I believe it was simply through a mistake on the part of 


312 The Way of All Flesh 


a clerk that I was not informed of Ernest’s illness, but 
I heard nothing of it till I saw him by his own desire a 
few days after the chaplain had broken to him the sub- 
stance of what I had written. 

Ernest was terribly shocked when he heard of the loss 
of his money, but his ignorance of the world prevented 
him from seeing the full extent of the mischief. He had 
never been in serious want of money yet, and did not 
know what it meant. In reality, money losses are the 
hardest to bear of any by those who are old enough to 
comprehend them. 

A man can stand being told that he must submit to a 
severe surgical operation, or that he has some disease 
which will shortly kill him, or that he will be a cripple or 
blind for the rest of his life; dreadful as such tidings 
must be, we do not find that they unnerve the greater 
number of mankind; most men, indeed, go coolly enough 
even to be hanged, but the strongest quail before financial 
ruin, and the better men they are, the more complete, 
as a general rule, is their prostration. Suicide is a com- 
mon consequence of money losses; it is rarely sought as 
a means of escape from bodily suffering. If we feel that 
we have a competence at our backs, so that we can die 
warm and quietly in our beds, with no need to worry about 
expense, we live our lives out to the dregs, no matter how 
excruciating our torments. Job probably felt the loss of 
his flocks and herds more than that of his wife and fam- 
ily, for he could enjoy his flocks and herds without his 
family, but not his family—not for long—if he had lost 
all his money. Loss of money indeed is not only the worst 
pain in itself, but it is the parent of all others. Let a 
man have been brought up to a moderate competence, and 
have no specialty; then let his money be suddenly taken 
from him, and how long is his health likely to survive the 
change in all his little ways which loss of money will entail? 
How long again is the esteem and sympathy of friends 
likely to survive ruin? People may be very sorry for us, 


The Way of All Flesh 313 


but their attitude towards us hitherto has been based upon 
the supposition that we were situated thus or thus in money 
matters; when this breaks down there must be a restate- 
ment of the social problem so far as we are concerned; 
we have been obtaining esteem under false pretences. 
Granted, then, that the three most serious losses which a 
man can suffer are those affecting money, health and repu- 
tation. Loss of money is far the worst, then comes ill- 
health, and then loss of reputation; loss of reputation is 
a bad third, for, if a man keeps health and money unim- 
paired, it will be generally found that his loss of reputa- 
tion is due to breaches of parvenu conventions only, and 
not to violations of those older, better established canons 
whose authority is unquestionable. In this case a man 
may grow a new reputation as easily as a lobster grows a 
new claw, or, if he have health and money, may thrive 
in great peace of mind without any reputation at all. The 
only chance for a man who has lost his money is that he 
shall still be young enough to stand uprooting and trans- 
planting without more than temporary derangement, and 
this I believed my godson still to be. 

By the prison rules he might receive and send a letter 
after he had been in gaol three months, and might also 
receive one visit from a friend. When he received my 
letter, he at once asked me to come and see him, which 
of course I did. I found him very much changed, and still 
so feeble that the exertion of coming from the infirmary 
to the cell in which I was allowed to see him, and the 
agitation of seeing me were too much for him. At first 
he quite broke down, and I was so pained at the state in 
which I found him, that I was on the point of breaking 
my instructions then and there. I contented myself, how- 
ever, for the time, with assuring him that I would help 
him as soon as he came out of prison, and that, when he 
had made up his mind what he would do, he was to come 
to me for what money might be necessary, if he could 
not get it from his father. To make it easier for him I 


314 The Way of All Flesh 


told him that his aunt, on her deathbed, had desired me 
to do something of this sort should an emergency arise, so 
that he would only be taking what his aunt had left him. 

“Then,” said he, “I will not take the £100 from my 
father, and I will never see him or my mother again.” 

I said: ‘“Take the £100, Ernest, and as much more as 
you can get, and then do not see them again if you do 
not like.” 

This Ernest would not do. If he took money from 
them, he could not cut them, and he wanted to cut them. 
I thought my godson would get on a great deal better 
if he would only have the firmness to do as he proposed, 
as regards breaking completely with his father and mother, 
and said so. ‘‘Then don’t you like them?” said he, with a 
look of surprise. 

“Like them!” said I, “‘I think they’re horrid.” 

“Oh, that’s the kindest thing of all you have done for 
me,” he exclaimed. “I thought all—all middle-aged peo- 
ple liked my father and mother.” 

He had been about to call me old, but I was only fifty- 
seven, and was not going to have this, so I made a face 
when [ saw him hesitating, which drove him into “middle- 
aged.” 

“If you like it,” said I, “I will say all your family are 
horrid except yourself and your Aunt Alethea. The greater. 
part of every family is always odious; if there are one 
or two good ones in a very large family, it is as much as 
can be expected.” 

“Thank you,” he replied, gratefully, ‘I think I can now 
stand almost anything. I will come and see you as soon as 
I come out of gaol. Goodbye.” For the warder had told 
us that the time allowed for our interview was at an end. 


CHAPTER LXVII 


As soon as Ernest found that he had no money to look 
to upon leaving prison he saw that his dreams about emi- 


The Way of All Flesh 315 


grating and farming must come to an end, for he knew 
that he was incapable of working at the plough or with the 
axe for long together himself. And now it seemed he 
should have no money to pay any one else for doing so. It 
was this that resolved him to part once and for all with his 
parents. If he had been going abroad he could have kept 
up relations with them, for they would have been too far 
off to interfere with him. 

He knew his father and mother would object to being 
cut; they would wish to appear kind and forgiving; they 
would also dislike having no further power to plague him; 
but he knew also very well that so long as he and they 
ran in harness together they would be always pulling one 
way and he another. He wanted to drop the gentleman 
and go down into the ranks, beginning on the lowest rung 
of the ladder, where no one would know of his disgrace or 
mind it if he did know; his father and mother on the 
other hand would. wish him to clutch on to the fag-end 
of gentility at a starvation salary and with no prospect of 
advancement. Ernest had seen enough in Ashpit Place to 
know that a tailor, if he did not drink and attended to 
his business, could earn more money than a clerk or a 
curate, while much less expense by way of show was re- 
quired of him. The tailor also had more liberty, and a 
better chance of rising. Ernest resolved at once, as he 
had fallen so far, to fall still lower—promptly, gracefully 
and with the idea of rising again, rather than cling to the 
skirts of a respectability which would permit him to exist 
on sufferance only, and make him pay an utterly extortion- 
ate price for an article which he could do better without. 

He arrived at this result more quickly than he might 
otherwise have done through remembering something he 
had once heard his aunt say about “kissing the soil.” 
This had impressed him and stuck by him perhaps by rea- 
son of its brevity; when later on he came to know the story 
of Hercules and Antzus, he found it one of the very few 
ancient fables which had a hold over him—his chiefest 


316 The Way of All Flesh 


debt to classical literature. His aunt had wanted him to 
learn carpentering, as a means of kissing the soil should 
his Hercules ever throw him. It was too late for this 
now—or he thought it was—but the mode of carrying out 
his aunt’s idea was a detail; there were a hundred ways 
of kissing the soil besides becoming a carpenter. 

He had told me this during our interview, and I had 
encouraged him to the utmost of my power. He showed 
so much more good sense than I had given him credit for 
that I became comparatively easy about him, and deter- 
mined to let him play his own game, being always, how- 
ever, ready to hand in case things went too far wrong. 
It was not simply because he disliked his father and mother 
that he wanted to have no more to do with them; if it had 
been only this he would have put up with them; but a 
warning voice within told him distinctly enough that if he 
was clean cut away from them he might still have a chance 
of success, whereas if they had anything whatever to do 
with him, or even knew where he was, they would hamper 
him and in the end ruin him. Absolute independence he 
believed to be his only chance of very life itself. 

Over and above this—if this were not enough—Ernest 
had a faith in his own destiny such as most young men, 
I suppose, feel, but the grounds of which were not appar- 
ent to anyone but himself. Rightly or wrongly, in a 
quiet way he believed he possessed a strength which, if 
he were only free to use it in his own way, might do great 
things some day. He did not know when, nor where, 
nor how his opportunity was to come, but he never doubted 
that it would come in spite of all that had happened, and 
above all else he cherished the hope that he might know 
how to seize it if it came, for whatever it was it would 
be something that no one else could do so well as he could. 
People said there were no dragons and giants for adventur- 
ous men to fight with nowadays; it was beginning to dawn 
upon him that there were just as many now as at any past 
time. 


The Way of All Flesh 317 


Monstrous as such a faith may seem in one who was 
qualifying himself for a high mission by a term of impris- 
onment, he could no more help it than he could help breath- 
ing; it was innate in him, and it was even more with a 
view to this than for other reasons that he wished to 
sever the connection between himself and his parents; for 
he knew that if ever the day came in which it should ap- 
pear that before him too there was a race set in which 
it might be an honour to have run among the foremost, 
his father and mother would be the first to let him and 
hinder him in running it. They had been the first to say 
that he ought to run such a race; they would also be the 
first to trip him up if he took them at their word, and then 
afterwards upbraid him for not having won. Achieve- 
ment of any kind would be impossible for him unless he 
was free from those who would be for ever dragging him 
back into the conventional. The conventional had been 
tried already and had been found wanting. 

He had an opportunity now, if he chose to take it, of 
escaping once for all from those who at once tormented 
him and would hold him earthward should a chance of 
soaring open before him. He should never have had it 
but for his imprisonment; but for this the force of habit 
and routine would have been too strong for him; he should 
hardly have had it if he had not lost all his money; the 
gap would not have been so wide but that he might have 
been inclined to throw a plank across it. He rejoiced 
now, therefore, over his loss of money as well as over 
his imprisonment, which had made it more easy for him 
to follow his truest and most lasting interests. 

At times he wavered, when he thought of how his 
mother, who in her way, as he thought, had loved him, 
would weep and think sadly over him, or how perhaps 
she might even fall ill and die, and how the blame would 
rest with him. At these times his resolution was near 
breaking, but when he found I applauded his design, the 
voice within, which bade him see his father’s and mother’s 


318 The Way of Ail Flesh 


faces no more, grew louder and more persistent. If he 
could not cut himself adrift from those who he knew 
would hamper him, when so small an effort was wanted, 
his dream of a destiny was idle; what was the prospect of 
a hundred pounds from his father in comparison with 
jeopardy to this? He still felt deeply the pain his dis- 
grace had inflicted upon his father and mother, but he 
was getting stronger, and reflected that as he had run his 
chance with them for parents, so they must run theirs 
with him for a son. 

He had nearly settled down to this conclusion when 
he received a letter from his father which made his de- 
cision final. If the prison rules had been interpreted 
strictly, he would not have been allowed to have this letter 
for another three months, as he had already heard from 
me, but the governor took a lenient view, and considered 
the letter from me to be a business communication hardly 
coming under the category of a letter from friends. Theo- 
bald’s letter therefore was given to his son. It ran as 
follows :— 


“My dear Ernest, My object 1n writing is not to up- 
braid you with the disgrace and shame you have inflicted 
upon your mother and myself, to say nothing of your 
brother Joey, and your sister. Suffer of course we must, 
but we know to whom to look in our affliction, and are 
filled with anxiety rather on your behalf than our own. 
Your mother is wonderful. She is pretty well in health, 
and desires me to send you her love. 

““Have you considered your prospects on leaving prison? 
T understand from Mr. Overton that you have lost the 
legacy which your grandfather left you, together with 
all the interest accrued during your minority, in the 
course of speculation upon the Stock Exchange! If you 
have indeed been guilty of such appalling folly it is difficult 
to see what you can turn your hand to, and I suppose you 
will try to find a clerkship in an office. Your salary will 


The Way of All Flesh 319 


doubtless be low at first, but you have made your bed 
and must not complain if you have to lie upon it. If you 
take pains to please your employers they will not be back- 
ward in promoting you. 

“When I first heard from Mr. Overton of the unspeak- 
able calamity which had befallen your mother and my- 
self, I had resolved not to see you again. I am unwilling, 
however, to have recourse to a measure which would de- 
prive you of your last connecting link with respectable 
people. Your mother and I will see you as soon as you 
come out of prison; not at Battersby—we do not wish you _ 
to come down here at present—but somewhere else, prob- 
ably in London. You need not shrink from seeing us; 
we shall not reproach you. We will then decide about 
your future. 

“‘At present our impression is that you will find a fairer 
start probably in Australia or New Zealand than here, 
and I am prepared to find you £75 or even if necessary so 
far as £100 to pay your passage money. Once in the col- 
ony you must be dependent upon your own exertions. 

*“May Heaven prosper them and you, and restore you 
to us years hence a respected member of society.—Your 
affectionate father, T. PontTiFex.” 


Then there was a postscript in Christina’s writing. 


“My darling, darling boy, pray with me daily and hourly 
that we may yet again become a happy, united, God- 
fearing family as we were before this horrible pain fell 
upon us.—Your sorrowing but ever loving mother, 


ee ie 


This letter did not produce the effect on Ernest that it 
would have done before his imprisonment began. His 
father and mother thought they could take him up as 
they had left him off. They forgot the rapidity with which 
development follows misfortune, if the sufferer is young 


320 The Way of All Flesh 


and of a sound temperament. Ernest made no reply to 
his father’s letter, but his desire for a total break developed 
into something like a passion. “There are orphanages,” 
he exclaimed to himself, ‘for children who have lost their 
parents—oh! why, why, why, are there no harbours of 
refuge for grown men who have not yet lost them?” And 
he brooded over the bliss of Melchisedek who had been 
born an orphan, without father, without mother, and 
without descent. 


CHAPTER UXVIII 


Wuen [I think over all that Ernest told me about his 
prison meditations, and the conclusions he was drawn to, 
it occurs to me that in reality he was wanting to do the 
very last thing which it would have entered into his head 
to think of wanting. I mean that he was trying to give 
up father and mother for Christ’s sake. He would have 
said he was giving them up because he thought they hin- 
dered him in the pursuit of his truest and most lasting 
happiness. Granted, but what is this if it is not Christ? 
What is Christ if He is not this? He who takes the high- ~ 
est and most self-respecting view of his own welfare which 
it is in his power to conceive, and adheres to it in spite 
of conventionality, is a Christian whether he knows it 
and calls himself one, or whether he does not. A rose is 
not the less a rose because it does not know its own name. 

What if circumstances had made his duty more easy 
for him than it would be to most men? ‘That was his 
luck, as much as it is other people’s luck to have other 
duties made easy for them by accident of birth. Surely 
if people are born rich or handsome they have a right to 
their good fortune. Some I know, will say that one man 
has no right to be born with a better constitution than 
another; others again will say that luck is the only right- 
eous object of human veneration. Both, I daresay, can 
make out a very good case, but whichever may be right 


The Way of All Flesh 321 


surely Ernest had as much right to the good luck of find- 
ing a duty made easier as he had had to the bad fortune of 
falling into the scrape which had got him into prison. A 
man is not to be sneered at for having a trump card in his 
hand; he is only to be sneered at if he plays his trump 
card badly. 

Indeed, I question whether it is ever much harder for 
anyone to give up father and mother for Christ’s sake 
than it was for Ernest. The relations between the par- 
ties will have almost always been severely strained before 
it comes to this. I doubt whether anyone was ever yet 
required to give up those to whom he was tenderly at- 
tached for a mere matter of conscience: he will have ceased 
to be tenderly attached to them long before he is called 
upon to break with them; for differences of opinion con- 
cerning any matter of vital importance spring from dif- 
ferences of constitution, and these will already have led 
to so much other disagreement that the “giving up,” 
when it comes, is like giving up an aching but very loose 
and hollow tooth. It is the loss of those whom we are not 
required to give up for Christ’s sake which is really pain- 
ful to us. Then there is a wrench in earnest. Happily, 
no matter how light the task that is demanded from us, 
it is enough if we do it; we reap our reward, much as though 
it were a Herculean labour. 

But to return, the conclusion Ernest came to was that 
he would be a tailor. He talked the matter over with the 
chaplain, who told him there was no reason why he should 
not be able to earn his six or seven shillings a day by the 
time he came out of prison, if he chose to learn the trade 
during the remainder of his terem—not quite three months; 
the doctor said he was strong enough for this, and that it 
was about the only thing he was as yet fit for; so he left 
the infirmary sooner than he would otherwise have done 
and entered the tailor’s shop, overjoyed at the thoughts 
of seeing his way again, and confident of rising some day 
if he could only get a firm foothold to start from. 


322 The Way of All Flesh 


Everyone whom he had to do with saw that he did not 
belong to what are called the criminal classes, and finding 
him eager to learn and to save trouble always treated him 
kindly and almost respectfully. He did not find the work 
irksome; it was far more pleasant than making Latin and 
Greek verses at Roughborough; he felt that he would 
rather be here in prison than at Roughborough again— 
yes, or even at Cambridge itself. The only trouble he was 
ever in danger of getting into was through exchanging 
words or looks with the more decent-looking of his fellow- | 
prisoners. This was forbidden, but he never missed a 
chance of breaking the rules in this respect. 

Any man of his ability who was at the same time anx- 
ious to learn would of course make rapid progress, and 
before he left prison the warder said he was as good a 
tailor with his three months’ apprenticeship as many a man 
was with twelve. Ernest had never before been so much 
praised by any of his teachers. Each day as he grew 
stronger in health and more accustomed to his surround- 
ings he saw some fresh advantage in his position, an ad- 
vantage which he had not aimed at, but which had come 
almost in spite of himself, and he marvelled at his own 
good fortune, which had ordered things so greatly better 
for him than he could have ordered them for himself. 

His having lived six months in Ashpit Place was a case 
in point. Things were possible to him which to others 
like him would be impossible. If such a man as Towne- 
ley were told he must live henceforth in a house like 
those in Ashpit Place it would be more than he could stand. 
Ernest could not have stood it himself if he had gone to 
live there of compulsion through want of money. It was 
only because he had felt himself able to run away at any 
minute that he had not wanted to do so; now, however, 
that he had become familiar with life in Ashpit Place 
he no longer minded it, and could live gladly in lower 
parts of London than that so long as he could pay his way. 
It was from no prudence or forethought that he had 


The Way of All Flesh 323 


served this apprenticeship to life among the poor. He had 
been trying in a feeble way to be thorough in his work: 
he had not been thorough, the whole thing had been a 
fiasco, but he had made a little puny effort in the direction 
of being genuine, and behold, in his hour of need it had been 
returned to him with a reward far richer than he had de- 
served. He could not have faced becoming one of the 
very poor unless he had had such a bridge to conduct him 
over to them as he had found unwittingly in Ashpit Place. 
‘True, there had been drawbacks in the particular house he 
had chosen, but he need not live in a house where there 
was a Mr. Holt, and he should no longer be tied to the 
profession which he so much hated; if there were neither 
screams nor scripture readings he could be happy in a 
garret at three shillings a week, such as Miss Maitland 
lived in. 

As he thought further he remembered that all things 
work together for good to them that love God; was it 
possible, he asked himself, that he too, however imper- 
fectly, had been trying to love him? He dared not answer 
Yes, but he would try hard that it should be so. Then 
there came into his mind that noble air of Handel’s: 
“Great God, who yet but darkly known,” and he felt it 
as he had never felt it before. He had lost his faith in 
Christianity, but his faith in something—he knew not 
what, but that there was a something as yet but darkly 
known, which made right right and wrong wrong—his 
faith in this grew stronger and stronger daily. 

Again there crossed his mind thoughts of the power 
which he felt to be in him, and of how and where it was 
to find its vent. The same instinct which had led him to 
live among the poor because it was the nearest thing to 
him which he could lay hold of with any clearness came 
to his assistance here too. He thought of the Australian 
gold and how those who lived among it had never seen it 
though it abounded all around them: “Here is gold every- 
where,” he exclaimed inwardly, “‘to those who look for it.”” 


324 The Way of All Flesh 


Might not his opportunity be close upon him if he looked 
carefully enough at his immediate surroundings? What 
was his position? He had lost all. Could he not turn 
his having lost all into an opportunity? Might he not, if 
he too sought the strength of the Lord, find, like St. Paul, 
that it was perfected in weakness? 

He had nothing more to lose; money, friends, charac- 
ter, all were gone for a very long time if not for ever; 
but there was something else also that had taken its flight 
along with these. I mean the fear of that which man 
could do unto him. Cantabit vacuus. Who could hurt 
him more than he had been hurt already? Let him but 
be able to earn his bread, and he knew of nothing which 
he dared not venture if it would make the world a hap- 
pier place for those who were young and lovable. Herein 
he found so much comfort that he almost wished he had 
lost his reputation even more completely—for he saw that 
it was like a man’s life which may be found of them that 
lose it and lost of them that would find it. He should 
not have had the courage to give up all for Christ’s sake, 
but now Christ had mercifully taken all, and lo! it seemed 
as though all were found. 

As the days went slowly by he came to see that Chris- 
tianity and the denial of Christianity after all met as much 
as any other extremes do; it was a fight about names— 
not about things; practically the Church of Rome, the 
Church of England, and the freethinker have the same 
ideal standard and meet in the gentleman; for he is the 
most perfect saint who is the most perfect gentleman. 
Then he saw also that it matters little what profession, 
whether of religion or irreligion, a man may make, pro- 
vided only he follows it out with charitable inconsistency, 
and without insisting on it to the bitter end. It is in the 
uncompromisingness with which dogma is held and not 
in the dogma or want of dogma that the danger lies. This 
was the crowning point of the edifice; when he had got 
here he no longer wished to molest even the Pope. The 


The Way of All Flesh 325 


Archbishop of Canterbury might have hopped about all 
round him and even picked crumbs out of his hand with- 
out running risk of getting a sly sprinkle of salt. That 
wary prelate himself might perhaps have been of a dif- 
ferent opinion, but the robins and thrushes that hop about 
our lawns are not more needlessly distrustful of the hand 
that throws them out crumbs of bread in winter, than the 
Archbishop would have been of my hero. 

Perhaps he was helped to arrive at the foregoing con- 
clusion by an event which almost thrust inconsistency 
upon him. A few days after he had left the infirmary the 
chaplain came to his cell and told him that the prisoner 
who played the organ in chapel had just finished his sen- 
tence and was leaving the prison; he therefore offered the 
post to Ernest, who he already knew played the organ. 
Ernest was at first in doubt whether it would be right for 
him to assist at religious services more than he was actually 
compelled to do, but the pleasure of playing the organ, and 
the privileges which the post involved, made him see excel- 
lent reasons for not riding consistency to death. Having, 
then, once introduced an element of inconsistency into his 
system, he was far too consistent not to be inconsistent 
consistently, and he lapsed ere long into an amiable in- 
differentism which to outward appearance differed but 
little from the indifferentism from which Mr. Hawke had 
aroused him. 

By becoming organist he was saved from the tread- 
mill, for which the doctor had said he was unfit as yet, 
but which he would probably have been put to in due 
course as soon as he was stronger. He might have escaped 
the tailor’s shop altogether and done only the compara- 
tively light work of attending to the chaplain’s rooms if he 
had liked, but he wanted to learn as much tailoring as he 
could, and did not therefore take advantage of this offer; 
he was allowed, however, two hours a day in the after- 
noon for practice. From that moment his prison life ceased 
to be monotonous, and the remaining two months of his 


326 The Way of All Flesh 


sentence slipped by almost as rapidly as they would have 
done if he had been free. What with music, books, learn- 
ing his trade, and conversation with the chaplain, who was 
just the kindly, sensible person that Ernest wanted in 
order to steady him a little, the days went by so pleasantly 
that when the time came for him to leave prison, he did 
so, or thought he did so, not without regret. 


CHAPTER LXIX 


In coming to the conclusion that he would sever the con- 
nection between himself and his family once for all Ernest 
had reckoned without his family. Theobald wanted to 
be rid of his son, it 1s true, in so far as he wished him 
to be no nearer at any rate than the Antipodes; but he 
had no idea of entirely breaking with him. He knew his 
son well enough to have a pretty shrewd idea that this 
was what Ernest would wish himself, and perhaps as 
much for this reason as for any other he was de- 
termined to keep up the connection, provided it did 
not involve Ernest’s coming to Battersby nor any re- 
curring outlay. 

When the time approached for him to leave prison, his 
father and mother consulted as to what course they should 
adopt. 

“We must never leave him to himself,” said Theobald 
impressively; ‘““we can neither of us wish that.” 

“Oh, no! no! dearest Theobald,” exclaimed Christina. 
“Whoever else deserts him, and however distant he may 
be from us, he must still feel that he has parents whose 
hearts beat with affection for him no matter how cruelly 
he has pained them.” 

““He has been his own worst enemy,” said Theobald. 
“‘He has never loved us as we deserved, and now he will 
be withheld by false shame from wishing to see us. He 
will avoid us if he can.” 


“Then we must go to him ourselves,” 


said Christina; 


The Way of All Flesh 327 


““whether he likes it or not we must be at his side to sup- 
port him as he enters again upon the world.” 

“If we do not want him to give us the slip we must 
catch him as he leaves prison.” 

“We will, we will; our faces shall be the first to gladden 
his eyes as he comes out, and our voices the first to ex- 
hort him to return to the paths of virtue.” 

“‘T think,” said Theobald, ‘‘if he sees us in the street 
he will turn round and run away from us. He is in- 
tensely selfish.” 

“Then we must get leave to go inside the prison, and 
see him before he gets outside.” 

After a good deal of discussion this was the plan they 
decided on adopting, and having so decided, Theobald 
wrote to the governor of the gaol asking whether he could 
be admitted inside the gaol to receive Ernest when his 
sentence had expired. He received answer in the affirma- 
tive, and the pair left Battersby the day before Ernest 
was to come out of prison. 

Ernest had not reckoned on this, and was rather sur- 
prised on being told a few minutes before nine that he 
was to go into the receiving room before he left the prison, 
as there were visitors waiting to see him. His heart fell, 
for he guessed who they were, but he screwed up his cour- 
age and hastened to the receiving room. ‘There, sure 
enough, standing at the end of the table nearest the door 
were the two people whom he regarded as the most danger- 
ous enemies he had in all the world—his father and mother. 

He could not fly, but he knew that if he wavered he 
was lost. 

His mother was crying, but she sprang forward to meet 
him and clasped him in her arms. “Oh my boy, my boy,” 
she sobbed, and she could say no more. 

Ernest was as white as a sheet. His heart beat so that 
he could hardly breathe. He let his mother embrace him, 
and then withdrawing himself stood silently before her 
with the tears falling from his eyes. 


328 The Way of All Flesh 


At first he could not speak. For a minuute or so the 
silence on all sides was complete. Then, gathering strength, 
he said in a low voice: 

“Mother” (it was the first time he had called her any- 
thing but “‘mamma’’), “we must part.”” On this, turning 
to the warder, he said: “‘I believe I am free to leave the 
prison if I wish to do so. You cannot compel me to re- 
main here longer. Please take me to the gates.” 

Theobald stepped forward. ‘Ernest, you must not, 
shall not, leave us in this way.” 

“Do not speak to me,” said Ernest, his eyes flashing 
with a fire that was unwonted in them. Another warder 
then came up and took Theobald aside, while the first 
conducted Ernest to the gates. 

“Tell them,” said Ernest, “from me that they must 
think of me as one dead, for | am dead tothem. Say that 
my greatest pain is the thought of the disgrace I have in- 
flicted upon them, and that above all things else I will 
study to avoid paining them hereafter; but say also that if 
they write to me I will return their letters unopened, and 
that if they come and see me | will protect myself in what- 
ever way I can.” 

By this time he was at the prison gate, and in another 
moment was at liberty. After he had got a few steps out 
he turned kis face to the prison wall, leant against it for 
support and wept as though his heart would break. 

Giving up father and mother for Christ’s sake was not 
such an easy matter after all. If aman has been pos- 
sessed by devils for long enough they will rend him as 
they leave him, however imperatively they may have been 
cast out. Ernest did not stay long where he was, for he 
feared each moment that his father and mother would 
come out. He pulled himself together and turned into the 
labyrinth of small streets which opened out in front of him. 

He had crossed his Rubicon—not perhaps very hero- | 
ically or dramatically, but then it is only in dramas that 
people act dramatically. At any rate, by hook or by crook, 


The Way of All Flesh 329 


he had scrambled over, and was out upon the other side. 
Already he thought of much which he would gladly have 
said, and blamed his want of presence of mind; but, after 
all, it mattered very little. Inclined though he was to 
make very great allowances for his father and mother, 
he was indignant at their having thrust themselves upon 
him without warning at a moment when the excitement 
of leaving prison was already as much as he was fit for. It 
was a mean advantage to have taken over him, but he was 
glad they had taken it, for it made him realise more fully 
than ever that his one chance lay in separating him- 
self completely from them. 

The morning was grey, and the first signs of winter 
fog were beginning to show themselves, for it was now 
the 30th of September. Ernest wore the clothes in which 
he had entered prison, and was therefore dressed as a 
clergyman. No one who looked at him would have seen 
any difference between his present appearance and his 
appearance six months previously; indeed, as he walked 
slowly through the dingy crowded lane called Eyre Street 
Hill (which he well knew, for he had clerical friends in 
that neighbourhood), the months he had passed in prison 
seemed to drop out of his life, and so powerfully did asso- 
ciation carry him away that, finding himself in his old 
dress and in his old surroundings, he felt dragged back 
into his old self—as though his six months of prison life 
had been a dream from which he was now waking to take 
things up as he had left them. This was the effect of 
unchanged surroundings upon the unchanged part of him. 
But there was a changed part, and the effect of unchanged 
surroundings upon this was to make everything seem al- 
most as strange as though he had never had any life but 
his prison one, and was now born into a new world. 

All our lives long, every day and every hour, we are ' 
engaged in the process of accommodating our changed and 
unchanged selves to changed and unchanged surroundings; 
living, in fact, in nothing else than this process of accommo- 


| 
| 


330 The Way of All Flesh 


dation; when we fail in it a little we are stupid, when we 
fail flagrantly we are mad, when we suspend it tempora- 
rily we sleep, when we give up the attempt altogether 
we die. In quiet, uneventful lives the changes internal 
and external are so small that there is little or no strain in 
the process of fusion and accommodation; in other lives 
there is great strain, but there is also great fusing 
and accommodating power; in others great strain with 
little accommodating power. A life will be successful or 
not according as the power of accommodation is equal to or 
unequal to the strain of fusing and adjusting internal and 
external changes. 

The trouble is that in the end we shall be driven to 
admit the unity of the universe so completely as to be 
compelled to deny that there is either an external or an 
internal, but must see everything both as external and 
internal at one and the same time, subject and object— 
external and internal—being unified as much as everything 


\ else. This will knock our whole system over, but then 


\every system has got to be knocked over by something. 


Much the best way out of this difficulty is to go in for 
separation between internal and external—subject and 
object—when we find this convenient, and unity between 
the same when we find unity convenient. This is illogical, 
but extremes are alone logical, and they are always 
absurd, the mean is alone practicable and it is always il- 
logical. It is faith and not logic which is the supreme 
arbiter. They say all roads lead to Rome, and all philoso- 
phies that I have ever seen lead ultimately either to some 
gross absurdity, or else to the conclusion already more than 
once insisted on in these pages, that the just shall live by 
faith, that is to say that sensible people will | get through 
life by rule of thumb as they may interpret it most con- 
‘veniently without asking too many questions for conscience 
sake. Take any fact, and reason upon it to the bitter end, 
and it will ere long lead to this as the only refuge from some 
palpable folly. 


The Way of All Flesh 331 


But to return to my story. When Ernest got to the 
top of the street and looked back, he saw the grimy, sullen 
walls of his prison filling up the end of it. He paused for 
a minute or two. “There,” he said to himself, “I was 
hemmed in by bolts which I could see and touch; here I 
am barred by others which are none the less real—poverty 
and ignorance of the world. It was no part of my business 
to try to break the material bolts of iron and escape from 
prison, but now that I am free I must surely seek to 
break these others.” 

He had read somewhere of a prisoner who had made 
his escape by cutting up his bedstead with an iron spoon. 
He admired and marvelled at the man’s mind, but could 
not even try to imitate him; in the presence of immaterial 
barriers, however, he was not so easily daunted, and felt as 
though, even if the bed were iron and the spoon a wooden 
one, he could find some means of making the wood cut 
the iron sooner or later. 

He turned his back upon Eyre Street Hill and walked 
down Leather Lane into Holborn. Each step he took, 
each face or object that he knew, helped at once to link 
him on to the life he had led before his imprisonment, 
and at the same time to make him feel how completely 
that imprisonment had cut his life into two parts, the 
one of which could bear no resemblance to the other. 

He passed down Fetter Lane into Fleet Street and so 
to the Temple, to which I had just returned from my sum- 
mer holiday. It was about half past nine, and I was hav- 
ing my breakfast, when I heard a timid knock at the door 
and opened it to find Ernest. 


CHAPTER’ LXX 


I map begun to like him on the night Towneley had sent 
for me, and on the following day I thought he had shaped 
well. I had liked him also during our interview in prison, 
and wanted to see more of him, so that I might make up 


332 The Way of All Flesh 


my mind about him. I had lived long enough to know that 
some men who do great things in the end are not very 
wise when they are young; knowing that he would leave 
prison on the 30th, I had expected him, and, as I had a 
spare bedroom, pressed him to stay with me till he could 
make up his mind what he would do. 

Being so much older than he was, I anticipated no 
trouble in getting my own way, but he would not hear of it. 
The utmost he would assent to was that he should be my 
guest till he could find a room for himself, which he would 
set about doing at once. 

He was still much agitated, but grew better as he ate a 
breakfast, not of prison fare and in a comfortable room. 
It pleased me to see the delight he took in all about him; 
the fireplace with a fire in it; the easy chairs, the Times, 
my cat, the red geraniums in the window, to say nothing 
of coffee, bread and butter, sausages, marmalade, etc. 
Everything was pregnant with the most exquisite pleasure 
to him. The plane trees were full of leaf still; he kept 
rising from the breakfast table to admire them; never till 
now, he said, had he known what the enjoyment of these 
things really was. He ate, looked, laughed and cried by 
turns, with an emotion which I can neither forget nor 
describe. 

He told me how his father and mother had lain in 
wait for him, as he was about to leave prison. I was fu- 
rious, and applauded him heartily for what he had done. 
He was very grateful to me for this. Other people, he 
said, would tell him he ought to think of his father and 
mother rather than of himself, and it was such a comfort 
to find someone who saw things as he saw them himself. 
Even if I had differed from him I should not have said so, 
but I was of his opinion, and was almost as much obliged 
to him for seeing things as I saw them, as he to me for do- 
ing the same kind office by himself. Cordially as I dis- 
liked Theobald and Christina, I was in such a hopeless 
minority in the opinion I had formed concerning them 


The Way of All Flesh © $33 


that it was pleasant to find someone who agreed with 
me. 

Then there came an awful moment for both of us. 

A knock, as of a visitor and not a postman, was heard 
at my door. 

“Goodness gracious,” I exclaimed, ‘‘why didn’t we 
sport the oak?. Perhaps it is your father. But surely he 
would hardly come at this time of day! Go at once into 
my bedroom.” 

I went to the door, and, sure enough, there were both 
Theobald and Christina. I could not refuse to let them 
in and was obliged to listen to their version of the story, 
which agreed substantially with Ernest’s. Christina cried 
bitterly—Theobald stormed. After about ten minutes, 
during which I assured them that I had not the faintest 
conception where their son was, I dismissed them both. 
I saw they looked suspiciously upon the manifest signs 
that someone was breakfasting with me, and parted from 
me more or less defiantly, but I got rid of them, and poor 
Ernest came out again, looking white, frightened and up- 
set. He had heard voices, but no more, and did not feel 
sure that the enemy might not be gaining over me. We 
sported the oak now, and before long he began to recover. 

After breakfast, we discussed the situation. I had 
taken away his wardrobe and books from Mrs. Jupp’s, 
but had left his furniture, pictures and piano, giving Mrs. 
Jupp the use of these, so that she might let her room 
furnished, in lieu of charge for taking care of the furni- 
ture. As soon as Ernest heard that his wardrobe was at 
hand, he got out a suit of clothes he had had before he 
had been ordained, and put it on at once, much, as I 
thought, to the improvement of his personal appearance. 

Then we went into the subject of his finances. He had 
had ten pounds from Pryer only a day or two before he 
was apprehended, of which between seven and eight were 
in his purse when he entered the prison. This money 
was restored to him on leaving. He had always paid cash 


334 The Way of All Flesh 


for whatever he bought, so that there was nothing to be 
deducted for debts. Besides this, he had his clothes, books 
and furniture. He could, as I have said, have had £100 
from his father if he had chosen to emigrate, but this both 
Ernest and I (for he brought me round to his opinion) 
agreed it would be better to decline. This was all he 
knew of as belonging to him. 

He said he proposed at once taking an unfurnished top 
back attic in as quiet a house as he could find, say at 
three or four shillings a week, and looking out for work 
as a tailor. I did not think it much mattered what he 
began with, for I felt pretty sure he would ere long find 
his way to something that suited him, if he could get a 
start with anything at all. The difficulty was how to get 
him started. It was not enough that he should be able 
to cut out and make clothes—that he should have the 
organs, so to speak, of a tailor; he must be put into a 
tailor’s shop and guided for a little while by someone who 
knew how and where to help him. 

The rest of the day he spent in looking for a room, 
which he soon found, and in familiarising himself with 
liberty. In the evening I took him to the Olympic, where 
Robson was then acting in a burlesque on Macbeth, Mrs. 
Keeley, if I remember rightly, taking the part of Lady 
Macbeth. In the scene before the murder, Macbeth had 
said he could not kill Duncan when he saw his boots upon 
the landing. Lady Macbeth put a stop to her husband’s 
hesitation by whipping him up under her arm, and carry- 
ing him off the stage, kicking and screaming. Ernest 
laughed till he cried. ‘What rot Shakespeare is after this,” 
he exclaimed, involuntarily. I remembered his essay on the 
Greek tragedians, and was more épris with him than ever. 

Next day he set about looking for employment, and 
I did not see him till about five o’clock, when he came and 
said that he had had no success. The same thing happened 
the next day and the day after that. Wherever he went 
he was invariably refused and often ordered point blank 


The Way of All Flesh 335 


out of the shop; I could see by the expression of his face, 
though he said nothing, that he was getting frightened, 
and began to think I should have to come to the rescue. 
He said he had made a great many enquiries and had 
always been told the same story. He found that it was 
easy to keep on in an old line, but very hard to strike 
out into a new one. 

He talked to the fishmonger in Leather Lane, where 
he went to buy a bloater for his tea, casually as though 
from curiosity and without any interested motive. “Sell,” 
said the master of the shop, ““why, nobody wouldn’t be- 
lieve what can be sold by penn’orths and twopenn’orths if 
you go the right way to work. Look at whelks, for in- 
stance. Last Saturday night me and my little Emma here, 
we sold £7 worth of whelks between eight and half past 
eleven o’clock—and almost all in penn’orths and two- 
penn’orths—a few hap’orths, but not many. It was the 
steam that did it. We kept a-boiling of ’em hot and hot, 
and whenever the steam came strong up from the cellar on 
to the pavement, the people bought, but whenever the 
steam went down they left off buying; so we boiled them 
over and over again till they was all sold. That’s just 
where it is; if you know your business you can sell, if you 
don’t you'll soon make a mess of it. Why, but for the 
steam, I should not have sold 10s. worth of whelks all the 
night through.” 

This and many another yarn of kindred substance which 
he heard from other people determined Ernest more than 
ever to stake on tailoring as the one trade about which he 
knew anything at all, nevertheless, here were three or four 
days gone by and employment seemed as far off as ever. 

I now did what I ought to have done before, that is 
to say, I called on my own tailor whom I had dealt with 
for over a quarter of a century and asked his advice. He 
declared Ernest’s plan to be hopeless. ‘“‘If,” said Mr. Lar- 
kins, for this was my tailor’s name, “‘he had begun at four- 
teen, it might have done, but no man of twenty-four could 





336 The Way of All Flesh 


stand being turned to work into a workshop full of tailors; 
he would not get on with the men, nor the men with him; 
you could not expect him to be ‘hail fellow, well met’ 
with them, and you could not expect his fellow-workmen 
to like him if he was not. A man must have sunk low 
through drink or natural taste for low company, before 
he could get on with those who have had such a different 
training from his own.” 

Mr. Larkins said a great deal more and wound up by 
taking me to see the place where his own men worked. 
“This is a paradise,” he said, “compared to most work- 
shops. What gentleman could stand this air, think you, 
for a fortnight?” 

I was glad enough to get out of the hot, fetid atmos- 
phere in five minutes, and saw that there was no brick of 
Ernest’s prison to be loosened by going and working among 
tailors in a workshop. 

Mr. Larkins wound up by saying that even if my pro- 
tégé were a much better workman than he probably was, 
no master would give him employment, for fear of creat- 
ing a bother among the men. 

I left, feeling that I ought to have thought of all this 
myself, and was more than ever perplexed as to whether 
I had not better let my young friend have a few thousand 
pounds and send him out to the colonies, when, on my 
return home at about five o’clock, I found him waiting for 
me, radiant, and declaring that he had found all he wanted. 


CHAPTER LXXI 


It seems he had been patrolling the streets for the last 
three or four nights—I suppose in search of something 
to do—at any rate knowing better what he wanted to get 
than how to get it. Nevertheless, what he wanted was 
in reality so easily to be found that it took a highly edu- 
cated scholar like himself to be unable to find it. But, 
however this may be, he had been scared, and now saw 


The Way of All Flesh 337 


lions where there were none, and was shocked and fright- 
ened, and night after night his courage had failed him 
and he had returned to his lodgings in Laystall Street 
without accomplishing his errand. He had not taken me 
into his confidence upon this matter, and I had not en- 
quired what he did with himself in the evenings. At last 
he had concluded that, however painful it might be to 
him, he would call on Mrs. Jupp, who he thought would 
be able to help him if anyone could. He had been walk- 
ing moodily from seven till about nine, and now resolved 
to go straight to Ashpit Place and make a mother confessor 
of Mrs. Jupp without more delay. 

Of all tasks that could be performed by mortal woman 
there was none which Mrs. Jupp would have liked better 
than the one Ernest was thinking of imposing upon her; 
nor do I know that in his scared and broken-down state 
he could have done much better than he now proposed. 
Mrs. Jupp would have made it very easy for him to open 
his grief to her; indeed, she would have coaxed it all out 
of him before he knew where he was; but the fates were 
against Mrs. Jupp, and the meeting between my hero and 
his former landlady was postponed sine die, for his deter- 
mination had hardly been formed and he had not gone 
more than a hundred yards in the direction of Mrs. Jupp’s 
house, when a woman accosted him. 

He was turning from her, as he had turned from so 
many others, when she started back with a movement that 
aroused his curiosity. He had hardly seen her face, but 
being determined to catch sight of it, followed her as she 
hurried away, and passed.her; then turning round he saw 
that she was none other than Ellen, the housemaid who 
had been dismissed by his mother eight years previously. 

He ought to have assigned Ellen’s unwillingness to see 
him to its true cause, but a guilty conscience made him 
think she had heard of his disgrace and was turning away 
from him in contempt. Brave as had been his resolutions 
about facing the world, this was more than he was pre- 


338 The Way of All Flesh 


pared for. ‘‘What! you too shun me, Ellen?” he ex- 
claimed. 

The girl was crying bitterly and did not understand 
him. ‘Oh, Master Ernest,’”’ she sobbed, “‘let me go; you 
are too good for the likes of me to speak to now.” 

“Why, Ellen,” said he, “what nonsense you talk; you 
haven’t been in prison, have you?” 

‘Oh, no, no, no, not so bad as that,” she exclaimed 
passionately. 

“Well, I have,” said Ernest, with a forced laugh; “I 
came out three or four days ago after six months with 
hard labour.” 

Ellen did not believe him, but she looked at him with a 
‘Lor’! Master Ernest,” and dried her eyes at once. The 
ice was broken between them, for as a matter of fact Ellen 
had been in prison several times, and though she did not 
believe Ernest, his merely saying he had been in prison 
made her feel more at ease with him. For her there were 
two classes of people, those who had been in prison and 
those who had not. The first she looked upon as fellow- 
creatures and more or less Christians, the second, with few 
exceptions, she regarded with suspicion, not wholly un- 
mingled with contempt. 

Then Ernest told her what had happened to him dur- 
ing the last six months, and by-and-by she believed 
him. 

“Master Ernest,” said she, after they had talked for a 
quarter of an hour or so, “‘there’s a place over the way 
where they sell tripe and onions. I know you was always 
very fond of tripe and onions; let’s go over and have 
some, and we can talk better there.”’ 

So the pair crossed the street and entered the tripe 
shop; Ernest ordered supper. 

“And how is your pore dear mamma, and your dear 
papa, Master Ernest,” said Ellen, who had now recovered 
herself and was quite at home with my hero. “Oh, dear, 
dear me,” she said, “‘I did love your pa; he was a good 


’ 


The Way of All Flesh 339 


gentleman, he was, and your ma too; it would do anyone 
good to live with her, I’m sure.” 

Ernest was surprised and hardly knew what to say. He 
had expected to find Ellen indignant at the way she had 
been treated, and inclined to lay the blame of her having 
fallen to her present state at his father’s and mother’s 
door. It was not so. Her only recollection of Battersby 
was as of a place where she had had plenty to eat and 
drink, not too much hard work, and where she had not 
been scolded. When she heard that Ernest had quarrelled 
with his father and mother she assumed as a matter of 
course that the fault must lie entirely with Ernest. 

“Oh, your pore, pore ma!”’ said Ellen. “She was always 
so very fond of you, Master Ernest: you was always her 
favourite; I can’t bear to think of anything between you 
and her. To think now of the way she used to have me into 
the dining-room and teach me my catechism, that she 
did! Oh, Master Ernest, you really must go and make it 
all up with her; indeed you must.” 

Ernest felt rueful, but he had resisted so valiantly al- 
ready that the devil might have saved himself the trouble 
of trying to get at him through Ellen in the matter of his 
father and mother. He changed the subject, and the pair 
warmed to one another as they had their tripe and pots of 
beer. Of all people in the world Ellen was perhaps the 
one to whom Ernest could have spoken most freely at this 
juncture. He told her what he thought he could have told 
to no one else. 

“You know, Ellen,” he concluded, “‘I had learnt as a 
boy things that I ought not to have learnt, and had never 
had a chance of that which would have set me straight.” 

“Gentlefolks is always like that,” said Ellen musingly. 

“T believe you are right, but | am no longer a gentleman, 
Ellen, and I don’t see why I should be ‘like that’ any 
longer, my dear. I want you to help me to be like some- 
thing else as soon as possible.”’ 

Lor’! Master Ernest, whatever can you be meaning?” 


340 The Way of All Flesh 


The pair soon afterwards left the eating-house and 
walked up Fetter Lane together. 

Ellen had had hard times since she had left Battersby, 
but they had left little trace upon her. 

Ernest saw only the fresh-looking, smiling face, the 
dimpled cheek, the clear blue eyes and lovely, sphinx-like 
lips which he had remembered as a boy. At nineteen she 
had looked older than she was, now she looked much 
younger; indeed she looked hardly older than when Ernest 
had last seen her, and it would have taken a man of much 
greater experience than he possessed to suspect how com- 
pletely she had fallen from her first estate. It never oc- 
curred to him that the poor condition of her wardrobe was 
due to her passion for ardent spirits, and that first and 
last she had served five or six times as much time in gaol 
as he had. He ascribed the poverty of her attire to the 
attempts to keep herself respectable, which Ellen during 
supper had more than once alluded to. He had been 
charmed with the way in which she had declared that a 
pint of beer would make her tipsy, and had only allowed 
herself to be forced into drinking the whole after a good 
deal of remonstrance. To him she appeared a very angel 
dropped from the sky, and all the more easy to get on 
with for being a fallen one. 

As he walked up Fetter Lane with her towards Laystall 
Street, he thought of the wonderful goodness of God 
towards him in throwing in his way the very person of 
all others whom he was most glad to see, and whom, of 
all others, in spite of her living so near him, he might 
have never fallen in with but for a happy accident. 

When people get it into their heads that they are being 
specially favoured by the Almighty, they had better as a 
general rule mind their p’s and q’s, and when they think 
they see the devil’s drift with more special clearness, 
let them remember that he has had much more expe- 
rience than they have, and is probably meditating mis- 


chief. 


The Way of All Flesh 341 


Already during supper the thought that in Ellen at last 
he had found a woman whom he could love well enough 
to wish to live with and marry had flitted across his mind, 
and the more they have chatted the more reasons kept 
suggesting themselves for thinking that what might be 
folly in ordinary cases would not be folly in his. 

He must marry someone; that was already settled. He 
could not marry a lady; that was absurd. He must marry 
a poor woman. Yes, but a fallen one? Was he not fallen 
himself? Ellen would fall no more. He had only to look 
at her to be sure of this. He could not live with her in 
sin, not for more than the shortest time that could elapse 
before their marriage; he no longer believed in the super- 
natural element of Christianity, but the Christian moral- 
ity at any rate was indisputable. Besides, they might have 
children, and a stigma would rest upon them. Whom had 
he to consult but himself now? His father and mother 
never need know, and even if they did, they should be 
thankful to see him married to any woman who would 
make him happy as Ellen would. As for not being able 
to afford marriage, how did poor people do? Did not a 
good wife rather help matters than not? Where one could 
live two could do so, and if Ellen was three or four years 
older than he was—well, what was that? 

Have you, gentle reader, ever loved at first sight? When 
you fell in love at first sight, how long, let me ask, did it 
take you to become ready to fling every other considera- 
tion to the winds except that of obtaining possession of 
the loved one? Or rather, how long would it have taken 
you if you had had no father or mother, nothing to lose 
in the way of money, position, friends, professional ad- 
vancement, or what not, and if the object of your affec- 
tions was as free from all these impedimenta as you were 
yourself? 


If you were a young John Stuart Mill, perhaps it would ~~ 


have taken you some time, but suppose your nature was 
Quixotic, impulsive, altruistic, guileless; suppose you were 


342 The Way of All Flesh 


a hungry man starving for something to love and lean upon, 
for one whose burdens you might bear, and who might help 
you to bear yours. Suppose you were down on your luck, 
still stunned by a horrible shock, and this bright vista of 
a happy future floated suddenly before you, how long under 
these circumstances do you think you would reflect before 
you would decide on embracing what chance had thrown 
in your way? 

It did not take my hero long, for before he got past the 
ham and beef shop near the top of Fetter Lane, he had 
told Ellen that she must come home with him and live 
with him till they could get married, which they would do 
upon the first day that the law allowed. 

I think the devil must have chuckled and made toler- 
ably sure of his game this time. 


CHAPTER CXXTI 


Ernest told Ellen of his difficulty about finding employ- 
ment. 

“But what do you think of going into a shop for, my 
dear,” said Ellen. ‘‘Why not take a little shop yourself?” 

Ernest asked how much this would cost. Ellen told 
him that he might take a house in some small street, say 
near the “Elephant and Castle,” for 17s. or 18s. a week, 
and let off the two top floors for 1tos., keeping the back 
parlour and shop for themselves. If he could raise five or 
six pounds to buy some second-hand clothes to stock the 
shop with, they could mend and clean them, and she 
could look after the women’s clothes while he did the 
men’s. Then he could mend and make, if he could get 
the orders. 

They could soon make a business of £2 a week in this 
way; she had a friend who began like that and had now 
moved to a better shop, where she made £5 or £6 a week 
at least—and she, Ellen, had done the greater part of the 
buying and selling herself. 


The Way of All Flesh 343 


Here was a new light indeed. It was as though he had 
got his £5000 back again all of a sudden, and perhaps ever 
so much more later on into the bargain. Ellen seemed 
more than ever to be his good genius. 

She went out and got a few rashers of bacon for his 
and her breakfast. She cooked them much more nicely 
than he had been able to do, and laid breaskfast for him 
and made coffee, and some nice brown toast. Ernest had 
been his own cook and housemaid for the last few days 
and had not given himself satisfaction. Here he suddenly 
found himself with someone to wait on him again. Not 
only had Ellen pointed out to him how he could earn a liv- 
ing when no one except himself had known how to advise 
him, but here she was so pretty and smiling, looking after 
even his comforts, and restoring him practically in all re- 
spects that he much cared about to the position which he 
had lost—or rather putting him in one that he already 
liked much better. No wonder he was radiant when he 
came to explain his plans to me. 

He had some difficulty in telling all that had happened. 
He hesitated, blushed, hummed and hawed. Miaisgivings 
began to cross his mind when he found himself obliged to 
tell his story to someone else. He felt inclined to slur 
things over, but I wanted to get at the facts, so I helped 
him over the bad places, and questioned him till I had 
got out pretty nearly the whole story as I have given it 
above. 

I hope I did not show it, but I was very angry. I had 
begun to like Ernest. I don’t know why, but I never have 
heard that any young man to whom I had become at- 
tached was going to get married without hating his in- 
tended instinctively, though I had never seen her; I have 
observed that most bachelors feel the same thing; though 
we are generally at some pains to hide the fact. Perhaps 
it is because we know we ought to have got married our- 
selves. Ordinarily we say we are delighted—in the present 
case I did not feel obliged to do this, though I made an 


344 The Way of All Flesh 


effort to conceal my vexation. That a young man of much 
promise who was heir also to what was now a handsome 
fortune, should fling himself away upon such a person as 
Ellen was quite too provoking, and the more so because of 
the unexpectedness of the whole affair. 

I begged him not to marry Ellen yet—not at least until 
he had known her for a longer time. He would not hear 
of it; he had given his word, and if he had not given it 
he should go and give it at once. I had hitherto found 
him upon most matters singularly docile and easy to man- 
age, but on this point I could do nothing with him. His 
recent victory over his father and mother had increased 
his strength, and I was nowhere. I would have told him 
of his true position, but I knew very well that this would 
only make him more bent on having his own way—for 
with so much money why should he not please himself? 
I said nothing, therefore, on this head, and yet all that I 
could urge went for very little with one who believed him- 
self to be an artisan or nothing. 

Really from his own standpoint there was nothing very 
outrageous in what he was doing. He had known and 
been very fond of Ellen years before. He knew her to come 
of respectable people, and to have borne a good character, 
and to have been universally liked at Battersby. She was 
then a quick, smart, hard-working girl—and a very pretty 
one. When at last they met again she was on her best 
behaviour—in fact, she was modesty and demureness 
itself. What wonder, then, that his imagination should 
fail to realise the changes that eight years must have 
worked? He knew too much against himself, and was too 
bankrupt in love to be squeamish; if Ellen had been only 
what he thought her, and if his prospects had been in 
reality no better than he believed they were, I do not 
know that there is anything much more imprudent in what 
Ernest proposed than there is in half the marriages that 
take place every day. 

There was nothing for it, however, but to make the 


The Way of All Flesh 345 


best of the inevitable, so I wished my young friend good 
fortune, and told him he could have whatever money he 
wanted to start his shop with, if what he had in hand was 
not sufficient. He thanked me, asked me to be kind enough 
to let him do all my mending and repairing, and to get 
him any other like orders that I could, and left me to my 
own reflections. 

I was even more angry when he was gone than I| had 
been while he was with me. His frank, boyish face had 
beamed with a happiness that had rarely visited it. Ex- 
cept at Cambridge he had hardly known what happiness 
meant, and even there his life had been clouded as of a 
man for whom wisdom at the greatest of its entrances 
was quite shut out. I had seen enough of the world and 
of him to have observed this, but it was impossible, or 
I thought it had been impossible, for me to have helped 
him. 

Whether I ought to have tried to help him or not I do 
not know, but I am sure that the young of all animals 
often do want help upon matters about which anyone would 
say a priori that there should be no difficulty. One would 
think that a young seal would want no teaching how to 
swim, nor yet a bird to fly, but in practice a young seal 
drowns if put out of its depth before its parents have taught 
it to swim; and so again, even the young hawk must be 
taught to fly before it can do so. 

I grant that the tendency of the times is to exaggerate - 
the good which teaching can do, but in trying to teach 
too much, in most matters, we have neglected others in 
respect of which a little sensible teaching would do no 
harm. 

I know it is the fashion to say that young people must 
find out things for themselves, and so they probably would 
if they had fair play to the extent of not having obstacles 
put in their way. But they seldom have fair play; as a 
general rule they meet with foul play, and foul play from 
those who live by selling them stones made into a great 


346 The Way of All Flesh 


variety of shapes and sizes so as to form a tolerable imita- 
tion of bread. 

Some are lucky enough to meet with few obstacles, some 
-are plucky enough to override them, but in the greater 
number of cases, if people are saved at all they are saved 
so as by frre. 

While Ernest was with me Ellen was looking out for a 
shop on the south side of the Thames near the “Elephant 
and Castle,” which was then almost a new and a very 
rising neighbourhood. By one o’clock she had found sey- 
eral from which a selection was to be made, and before 
night the pair had made their choice. 

Ernest brought Ellen to me. I did not want to see her, 
but could not well refuse. He had laid out a few of his 
shillings upon her wardrobe, so that she was neatly dressed, 
and, indeed, she looked very pretty and so good that I 
could hardly be surprised at Ernest’s infatuation when the 
other circumstances of the case were taken into considera- 
tion. Of course we hated one another instinctively from 
the first moment we set eyes on one another, but we 
each told Ernest that we had been most favourably im- 
pressed. 

Then I was taken to see the shop. An empty house is 
like a stray dog or a body from which life has departed. 
Decay sets in at once in every part of it, and what mould 
and wind and weather would spare, street boys commonly 
destroy. Ernest’s shop in its untenanted state was a dirty, 
unsavoury place enough. The house was not old, but it 
had been run up by a jerry-builder and its constitution 
had no stamina whatever. It was only by being kept warm 
and quiet that it would remain in health for many months 
together. Now it had been empty for some weeks and the 
cats had got in by night, while the boys had broken the 
windows by day. The parlour floor was covered with 
stones and dirt, and in the area was a dead dog which had 
been killed in the street and been thrown down into the 
first unprotected place that could be found. There was 


The Way of All Flesh 347 


a strong smell throughout the house, but whether it was 
bugs, or rats, or cats, or drains, or a compound of all four, 
I could not determine. The sashes did not fit, the flimsy 
doors hung badly; the skirting was gone in several places, 
and there were not a few holes in the floor; the locks were 
loose, and paper was torn and dirty; the stairs were weak 
and one felt the treads give as one went up them. 

Over and above these drawbacks the house had an ill 
name, by reason of the fact that the wife of the last occu- 
pant had hanged herself in it not very many weeks pre- 
viously. She had set down a bloater before the fire for her 
husband’s tea, and had made him a round of toast. She 
then left the room as though about to return to it shortly, 
but instead of doing so she went into the back kitchen and 
hanged herself without a word. It was this which had kept 
the house empty so long in spite of its excellent position 
as a corner shop. The last tenant had left immediately 
after the inquest, and if the owner had had it done up then 
people would have got over the tragedy that had been en- 
acted in it, but the combination of bad condition and bad 
fame had hindered many from taking it, who, like Ellen, 
could see that it had great business capabilities. Almost 
anything would have sold there, but it happened also that 
there was no secondhand clothes shop in close proximity, 
so that everything combined in its favour, except its 
filthy state and its reputation. 

When I saw it, I thought I would rather die than live 
in such an awful place—but then I had been living in the 
Temple for the last five and twenty years. Ernest was 
lodging in Laystall Street and had just come out of prison; 
before this he had lived in Ashpit Place, so that this house 
had no terrors for him provided he could get it done up. 
The difficulty was that the landlord was hard to move in 
this respect. It ended in my finding the money to do 
everything that was wanted, and taking a lease of the 
house for five years at the same rental as that paid by the 
last occupant. I then sublet it to Ernest, of course tak- 


348 The Way of All Flesh 


ing care that it was put more efficiently into repair than 
his landlord was at all likely to have put it. 

A week later I called and found everything so com- 
pletely transformed that I should hardly have recognised 
the house. All the ceilings had been whitewashed, all the 
rooms papered, the broken glass hacked out and reinstated, 
the defective woodwork renewed, all the sashes, cupboards 
and doors had been painted. The drains had been thor- 
oughly overhauled, everything in fact that could be done 
had been done, and the rooms now looked as cheerful as 
they had been forbidding when I had last seen them. The 
people who had done the repairs were supposed to have 
cleaned the house down before leaving, but Ellen had given 
it another scrub from top to bottom herself after they were 
gone, and it was as clean as a new pin. I almost felt as 
though I could have lived in it myself, and as for Ernest, 
he was in the seventh heaven. He said it was dll my doing 
and Ellen’s. 

There was already a counter in the shop and a few fit- 
tings, so that nothing now remained but to get some stock 
and set them out for sale. Ernest said he could not begin 
better than by selling his clerical wardrobe and his books, 
for though the shop was intended especially for the sale 
of second-hand clothes, yet Ellen said there was no reason 
why they should not sell a few books too; so a beginning 
was to be made by selling the books he had had at school 
and college at about one shilling a volume, taking them 
all round, and I have heard him say that he learned more 
that proved of practical use to him through stocking his 
books on a bench in front of his shop and selling them, 
than he had done from all the years of study which he had 
bestowed upon their contents. 

For the enquiries that were made of him, whether he 
had such and such a book, taught him what he could sell 
and what he could not; how much he could get for this, and 
how much for that. Having made ever such a little begin- 
ning with books, he took to attending book sales as well as 


The Way of All Flesh 349 


clothes sales, and ere long this branch of his business be- 
came no less important than the tailoring, and would, I 
have no doubt, have been the one which he would have 
settled down to exclusively, if he had been called upon to 
remain a tradesman; but this is anticipating. 

I made a contribution and a stipulation. Ernest wanted 
to sink the gentleman completely, until such time as he 
could work his way up again. If he had been left to him- 
self he would have lived with Ellen in the shop back par- 
lour and kitchen, and have let out both the upper floors 
according to his original programme. I did not want him, 
however, to cut himself adrift from music, letters and po- 
lite life, and feared that unless he had some kind of den into 
which he could retire he would ere long become the trades- 
man and nothing else. I therefore insisted on taking the 
first floor front and back myself, and furnishing them with 
the things which had been left at Mrs. Jupp’s. I bought 
these things of him for a small sum and had them moved 
into his present abode. 

I went to Mrs. Jupp’s to arrange all this, as Ernest did 
not like going to Ashpit Place. I had half expected to 
find the furniture sold and Mrs. Jupp gone, but it was not 
so; with all her faults the poor old woman was perfectly 
honest. 

I told her that Pryer had taken all Ernest’s money and 
run away with it. She hated Pryer. “I never knew any- 
one,” she exclaimed, ‘‘as white-livered in the face as that 
Pryer; he hasn’t got an upright vein in his whole body. 
Why, all that time when he used to come breakfasting 
with Mr. Pontifex morning after morning, it took me to a 
perfect shadow the way he carried on. There was no doing 
anything to please him right. First I used to get them 
eggs and bacon, and he didn’t like that; and then I got him 
a bit of fish, and he didn’t like that, or else it was too dear, 
and you know fish is dearer than ever; and then I got him 
a bit of German, and he said it rose on him; then I tried 
sausages, and he said they hit him in the eye worse even 


350 The Way of All Flesh 


than German; oh! how I used to wander my room and 
fret about it inwardly and cry for hours, and all about 
them paltry breakfasts—and it wasn’t Mr. Pontifex; he’d 
like anything that anyone chose to give him. 

“And so the piano’s to go,” she continued. ‘What 
beautiful tunes Mr. Pontifex did play upon it, to be sure; 
and there was one I liked better than any I ever heard. | 
was in the room when he played it once and when I said, 
‘Oh, Mr. Pontifex, that’s the kind of woman I am,’ he 
said, ‘No, Mrs. Jupp, it isn’t, for this tune is old, but no 
one can say you are old.’ But, bless you, he meant noth- 
ing by it, it was only his mucky flattery.” 

Like myself, she was vexed at his getting married. She 
didn’t like his being married, and she didn’t like his not 
being married—but, anyhow, it was Ellen’s fault, not his, 
and she hoped he would be happy. ‘But after all,” she 
concluded, “‘it ain’t you and it ain’t me, and it ain’t him 
and it ain’t her. It’s what you must call the fortunes of 
matterimony, for there ain’t no other word for it.” 

In the course of the afternoon the furniture arrived at 
Ernest’s new abode. In the first floor we placed the piano, 
table, pictures, bookshelves, a couple of armchairs, and 
all the little household gods which he had brought from 
Cambridge. The back room was furnished exactly as his 
bedroom at Ashpit Place had been—new things being got 
for the bridal apartment downstairs. These two first-floor 
rooms | insisted on retaining as my own, but Ernest was 
to use them whenever he pleased; he was never to sublet 
even the bedroom, but was to keep it for himself in case 
his wife should be ill at any time, or in case he might be 
ill himself. 

In less than a fortnight from the time of his leaving 
prison all these arrangements had been completed, and 
Ernest felt that he had again linked himself on to the 
life which he had led before his imprisonment—with a few 
important differences, however, which were greatly to his 
advantage. He was no longer a clergyman; he was about 


The Way of All Flesh 351 


to marry a woman to whom he was much attached, and 
he had parted company for ever with his father and mother. 

True, he had lost all his money, his reputation, and his 
position as a gentleman; he had, in fact, had to burn his 
house down in order to get his roast sucking pig; but if 
asked whether he would rather be as he was now or as 
he was on the day before his arrest, he would not have had 
a moment’s hesitation in preferring his present to his past. 
If his present could only have been purchased at the ex- 
pense of all that he had gone through, it was still worth 
purchasing at the price, and he would go through it all 
again if necessary. The loss of the money was the worst, 
but Ellen said she was sure they would get on, and she 
knew all about it. As for the loss of reputation—consider- 
ing that he had Ellen and me left, it did not come to much. 

I saw the house on the afternoon of the day on which 
all was finished, and there remained nothing but to buy 
some stock and begin selling. When I was gone, after he 
had had his tea, he stole up to his castle—the first floor 
front. He lit his pipe and sat down to the piano. He 
played Handel for an hour or so, and then set himself to 
the table to read and write. He took all his sermons and 
all the theological works he had begun to compose during 
the time he had been a clergyman and put them in the 
fire; as he saw them consume he felt as though he had got 
rid of another incubus. Then he took up some of the little 
pieces he had begun to write during the latter part of his 
undergraduate life at Cambridge, and began to cut them 
about and rewrite them. As he worked quietly at these 
till he heard the clock strike ten, and it was time to go to 
bed, he felt that he was now not only happy but supremely 
happy. 

Next day Ellen took him to Debenham’s auction rooms, 
and they surveyed the lots of clothes which were hung up 
all round the auction room to be viewed. Ellen had had 
sufficient experience to know about how much each lot 
ought to fetch; she overhauled lot after lot, and valued it; 


352 The Way of All Flesh 


in a very short time Ernest himself began to have a pretty 
fair idea what each lot should go for, and before the morn- 
ing was over valued a dozen lots running at prices about 
which Ellen said he would not hurt if he could get them for 
that. 

So far from disliking this work or finding it tedious, he 
liked it very much, indeed he would have liked anything 
which did not overtax his physical strength, and which 
held out a prospect of bringing him in money. Ellen 
would not let him buy anything on the occasion of this 
sale; she said he had better see one sale first and watch how 
prices actually went. So at twelve o’clock when the sale 
began, he saw the lots sold which he and Ellen had marked, 
and by the time the sale was over he knew enough to be 
able to bid with safety whenever he should actually want 
to buy. Knowledge of this sort is very easily acquired by 
anyone who 1s in bona fide want of it. 

But Ellen did not want him to buy at auctions—not 
much at least at present. Private dealing, she said, was 
best. If I, for example, had any cast-off clothes, he was 
to buy them from my laundress, and get a connection with 
other laundresses to whom he might give a trifle more than 
they got at present for whatever clothes their masters 
might give them, and yet make a good profit. If gentlemen 
sold their things, he was to try and get them to sell to him. 
He flinched at nothing; perhaps he would have flinched 
if he had had any idea how outré his proceedings were, 
but the very ignorance of the world which had ruined him 
up till now, by a happy irony began to work its own cure. 
If some malignant fairy had meant to curse him in this 
respect, she had overdone her malice. He did not know he 
was doing anything strange. He only knew that he had no 
money, and must provide for himself, a wife, and a pos- 
sible family. More than this, he wanted to have some 
leisure in an evening, so that he might read and write and 
keep up his music. If anyone would show him how he 
could do better than he was doing, he should be much 


The Way of All Flesh 353 


obliged to them, but to himself it seemed that he was doing 
sufficiently well; for at the end of the first week the pair 
found they had made a clear profit of £3. In a few weeks 
this had increased to £4, and by the New Year they had 
made a profit of £5 in one week. 

Ernest had by this time been married some two months, 
for he had stuck to his original plan of marrying Ellen on 
the first day he could legally do so. This date was a little 
delayed by the change of abode from Laystall Street to 
Blackfriars, but on the first day that it could be done it 
was done. He had never had more than £250 a year, even 
in the times of his affluence, so that a profit of £5 a week, 
if it could be maintained steadily, would place him where 
he had been as far as income went, and, though he should 
have to feed two mouths instead of one, yet his expenses in 
other ways were so much curtailed by his changed social 
position, that, take it all round, his income was practically 
what it had been a twelvemonth before. The next thing 
to do was to increase it, and put by money. 

Prosperity depends, as we all know, in great measure 
upon energy and good sense, but it also depends not a 
little upon pure luck—that is to say, upon connections 
which are in such a tangle that it is more easy to say that 
they do not exist than to try to trace them. A neighbour- 
hood may have an excellent reputation as being likely to 
be a rising one, and yet may become suddenly eclipsed by 
another, which no one would have thought so promising. 
A fever hospital may divert the stream of business, or a new 
station attract it; so little, indeed, can be certainly known, 
that it is better not to try to know more than is in every- 
body’s mouth, and to leave the rest to chance. 

Luck, which certainly had not been too kind to my hero 
hitherto, now seemed to have taken him under her protec- 
tion. The neighbourhood prospered, and he with it. It 
seemed as though he no sooner bought a thing and put it 
into his shop, than it sold with a profit of from thirty to 
fifty per cent. He learned bookkeeping, and watched his 


354 The Way of All Flesh 


accounts carefully, following up any success immediately; 
he began to buy other things besides clothes—such as 
books, music, odds and ends of furniture, etc. Whether 
it was luck or business aptitude, or energy, or the polite- 
ness with which he treated all his customers, I cannot say— 
but to the surprise of no one more than himself, he went 
ahead faster than he had anticipated, even in his wildest 
dreams, and by Easter was established in a strong posi- 
tion as the owner of a business which was bringing him in 
between four and five hundred a year, and which he under- 
stood how to extend. 


CHAPTER LXXIIlI 


ELLEN and he got on capitally, all the better, perhaps, be- 
cause the disparity between them was so great, that neither 
did Ellen want to be elevated, nor did Ernest want to 
elevate her. He was very fond of her, and very kind to 
her; they had interests which they could serve in common; 
they had antecedents with a good part of which each was 
familiar; they had each of them excellent tempers, and 
this was enough. Ellen did not seem jealous at Ernest’s 
preferring to sit the greater part of his time after the day’s 
work was done in the first floor front where | occasionally 
visited him. She might have come and sat with him if 
she had liked, but, somehow or other, she generally found 
enough to occupy her down below. She had the tact also 
to encourage him to go out of an evening whenever he had 
a mind, without in the least caring that he should take her 
too—and this suited Ernest very well. He was, I should 
say, much happier in his married life than people generally 
are. 

At first it had been very painful to him to meet any of 
his old friends, as he sometimes accidentally did, but this 
soon passed; either they cut him, or he cut them; it was not 
nice being cut for the first time or two, but after that, it 
became rather pleasant than not, and when he began to 


The Way of All Flesh 355 


see that he was going ahead, he cared very little what peo- 
ple might say about his antecedents. The ordeal is a 
painful one, but if a man’s moral and intellectual constitu- 
tion is naturally sound, there is nothing which will give 
him so much strength of character as having been well 
cut. 

It was easy for him to keep his expenditure down, for 
his tastes were not luxurious. He liked theatres, outings 
into the country on a Sunday, and tobacco, but he did not 
care for much else, except writing and music. As for the 
usual run of concerts, he hated them. He worshipped 
Handel; he liked Offenbach, and the airs that went about 
the streets, but he cared for nothing between these two ex- 
tremes. Music, therefore, cost him little. As for theatres, 
I got him and Ellen as many orders as they liked, so these 
cost them nothing. The Sunday outings were a small 
item; for a shilling or two he could get a return ticket to 
some place far enough out of town to give him a good walk 
and a thorough change for the day. Ellen went with him 
the first few times, but she said she found it too much for 
her, there were a few of her old friends whom she should 
sometimes like to see, and they and he, she said, would 
not hit it off perhaps too well, so it would be better for him 
to go alone. This seemed so sensible, and suited Ernest 
so exactly that he readily fell into it, nor did he suspect 
dangers which were apparent enough to me when I heard 
how she had treated the matter. I kept silence, however, 
and for a time all continued to go well. As I have said, one 
of his chief pleasures was in writing. If aman carries with 
him a little sketch book and is continually jotting down 
sketches, he has the artistic instinct; a hundred things 
may hinder his due development, but the instinct is there. 
The literary instinct may be known by a man’s keeping 
a small note-book in his waistcoat pocket, into which he 
jots down anything that strikes him, or any good thing 
that he hears said, or a reference to any passage which he 
thinks will come in useful to him. Ernest had such a note- 


Sitaram eames 


356 The Way of All Flesh 


book always with him. Even when he was at Cambridge 
he had begun the practice without anyone’s having sug- 
gested it to him. These notes he copied out from time to 
time into a book, which as they accumulated, he was 
driven into indexing approximately, as he went along. 
When I found out this, I knew that he had the literary 
instinct, and when I saw his notes I began to hope great 
things of him. 

For a long time I was disappointed. He was kept back 
by the nature of the subjects he chose—which were gen- 
erally metaphysical. In vain I tried to get him away from 
these to matters which had a greater interest for the gen- 
eral public. When I begged him to try his hand at some 
pretty, graceful, little story which should be full of what- 
ever people knew and liked best, he would immediately 
set to work upon a treatise to show the grounds on which 
all belief rested. 

“You are stirring mud,” said I, “or poking at a sleep- 
ing dog. You are trying to make people resume con- 
sciousness about things, which, with sensible men, have 
already passed into the unconscious stage. —The men whom 
you would disturb are ih front of you, and not, as you 
fancy, behind you; it is you who are the lagger, not they.” 

He could not see it. He said he was engaged on an 
essay upon the famous quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab 
omnibus of St. Vincent de Lerins. This was the more pro- 
voking because he showed himself able to do better things 
if he had liked. 

I was then at work upon my burlesque, ‘‘ The Impatient 
Griselda,” and was sometimes at my wits’ end for a piece 
of business or a situation; he gave me many suggestions, 
all of which were marked by excellent good sense. Never- 
theless I could not prevail with him to put philosophy on 
one side, and was obliged to leave him to himself. 

For a long time, as I have said, his choice of subjects 
continued to be such as I could not approve. He was con- 
tinually studying scientific and metaphysical writers, in 


The Way of All Flesh 357 


the hope of either finding or making for himself a philoso- 
pher’s stone in the shape of a system which should go on 
all fours under all circumstances, instead of being liable to 
be upset at every touch and turn, as every system yet 
promulgated has turned out to be. 

He kept to the pursuit of this will-o’-the-wisp so long 
that I gave up hope, and set him down as another fly that 
had been caught, as it were, by a piece of paper daubed 
over with some sticky stuff that had not even the merit of 
being sweet, but to my surprise he at last declared that he 
was satisfied, and had found what he wanted. 

I supposed that he had only hit upon some new “Lo, 
here!’ when to my relief, he told me that he had concluded 
that no system which should go perfectly upon all fours was 
possible, inasmuch as no one could get behind Bishop 
Berkeley, and therefore no absolutely incontrovertible 
first premise could ever be laid. Having found this he 
was just as well pleased as if he had found the most per- 
fect system imaginable. All he wanted, he said, was to 
know which way it was to be—that is to say whether a 
system was possible or not, and if possible then what the 


system was to be. Having found out that no system based —-— 


on absolute certainty was possible he was contented. 

I had only a very vague idea who Bishop Berkeley was, 
but was thankful to him for having defended us from an 
incontrovertible first premise. I am afraid I said a few 
words implying that after a great deal of trouble he had 
arrived at the conclusion which sensible people reach with- 
out bothering their brains so much. 

He said: ‘‘ Yes, but I was not born sensible. A child 
of ordinary powers learns to walk at a year or two old with- 
out knowing much about it; failing ordinary powers he 
had better learn laboriously than never learn at all. I 
am sorry I was not stronger, but to do as | did was my only 
chance.” 

He looked so meek that I was vexed with myself for 
having said what I had, more especially when I remembered 


358 The Way of All Flesh 


his bringing-up, which had doubtless done much to impair 
his power of taking a common-sense view of things. He 
continued— 

“T see it all now. The people like Towneley are the only 
ones who know anything that is worth knowing, and like 
that of course I can never be. But to make Towneleys 
possible there must be hewers of wood and drawers of 
water—men in fact through whom conscious knowledge 
must pass before it can reach those who can apply it grace- 
fully and instinctively as the Towneleys can. I am a hewer 
of wood, but if I accept the position frankly and do not 
set up to be a Towneley, it does not matter.” 

He still, therefore, stuck to science instead of turning 
to literature proper as I hoped he would have done, but he 
confined himself henceforth to enquiries on specific sub- 
jects concerning which an increase of our knowledge— 
as he said—was possible. Having in fact, after infinite 
vexation of spirit, arrived at a conclusion which cut at 
the roots of all knowledge, he settled contentedly down to 
the pursuit of knowledge, and has pursued it ever since in 
spite of occasional excursions into the regions of literature 
proper. 

But this is anticipating, and may perhaps also convey a 
wrong impression, for from the outset he did occasionally 
turn his attention to work which must be more properly 
called literary than either scientific or metaphysical. 


CHAPTER LXXIV 


AxBouT six months after he had set up his shop his pros- 
perity had reached its climax. It seemed even then as 
though he were likely to go ahead no less fast than hereto- 
fore, and I doubt not that he would have done so, if suc- 
cess or non-success had depended upon himself alone. 
Unfortunately he was not the only person to be reckoned 
with. 

One morning he had gone out to attend some sales, 


The Way of All Flesh 359 


leaving his wife perfectly well, as usual in good spirits, 
and looking very pretty. When he came back he found 
her sitting on a chair in the back parlour, with her hair 
over her face, sobbing and crying as though her heart would 
break. She said she had been frightened in the morning 
by a man who had pretended to be a customer, and had 
threatened her unless she gave him some things, and she 
had had to give them to him in order to save herself from 
violence; she had been in hysterics ever since the man had 
gone. This was her story, but her speech was so incoher- 
ent that it was not easy to make out what she said. Er- 
nest knew she was with child, and thinking this might have 
something to do with the matter, would have sent for a 
doctor if Ellen had not begged him not to do so. 

Anyone who had had experience of drunken people 
would have seen at a glance what the matter was, but my 
hero knew nothing about them,—nothing, that is to say, 
about the drunkenness of the habitual drunkard, which 
shows itself very differently from that of one who gets 
drunk only once in a way. The idea that his wife could 
drink had never even crossed his mind, indeed she always 
made a fuss about taking more than a very little beer, and 
never touched spirits. He did not know much more about 
hysterics than he did about drunkenness, but he had al- 
ways heard that women who were about to become mothers 
were liable to be easily upset and were often rather flighty, 
so he was not greatly surprised, and thought he had settled 
the matter by registering the discovery that being about 
to become a father has its troublesome as well as its 
pleasant side. 

The great change in Ellen’s life consequent upon her 
meeting Ernest and getting married had for a time actually 
sobered her by shaking her out of her old ways. Drunken- 
ness is so much a matter of habit, and habit so much a 
matter of surroundings, that if you completely change the 
surroundings you will sometimes get rid of the drunkenness 
altogether. Ellen had intended remaining always sober 


360 The Way of All Flesh 


henceforward, and never having had so long a steady fit 
before, believed she was now cured. So she perhaps 
would have been if she had seen none of her old acquaint- 
ances. When, however, her new life was beginning to lose 
its newness, and when her old acquaintances came to see 
her, her present surroundings became more like her past, 
and on this she herself began to get like her past too. At 
first she only got a little tipsy and struggled against a re- 
lapse; but it was no use, she soon lost the heart to fight, 
and now her object was not to try to keep sober, but to 
get gin without her husband’s finding it out. 

So the hysterics continued, and she managed to make her 
husband still think that they were due to her being about 
to become a mother. The worse her attacks were, the 
more devoted he became in his attention to her. — At last 
he insisted that a doctor should see her. The doctor of 
course took in the situation at a glance, but said nothing 
to Ernest except in such a guarded way that he did not 
understand the hints that were thrown out to him. He was 
much too downright and matter-of-fact to be quick at 
taking hints of this sort. He hoped that as soon as his 
wife’s confinement was over she would regain her health 
and had no thought save how to spare her as far as pos- 
sible till that happy time should come. 

In the mornings she was generally better, as long that 
is to say as Ernest remained at home; but he had to go 
out buying, and on his return would generally find that she 
had had another attack as soon as he had left the house. 
At times she would laugh and cry for half an hour to- 
gether, at others she would lie in a semi-comatose state 
upon the bed, and when he came back he would find that 
the shop had been neglected and all the work of the house- 
hold left undone. Still he took it for granted that this was 
all part of the usual course when women were going to be- 
come mothers, and when Ellen’s share of the work settled 
down more and more upon his own shoulders he did it all 
and drudged away without a murmur. Nevertheless, he 


The Way of All Flesh 361 


began to feel in a vague way more as he had felt in Ashpit 
Place, at Roughborough, or at Battersby, and to lose the 
buoyancy of spirits which had made another man of him 
during the first six months of his married life. 

It was not only that he had to do so much household 
work, for even the cooking, cleaning up slops, bed-making 
and fire-lighting ere long devolved upon him, but his busi- 
ness no longer prospered. He could buy as hitherto, but 
Ellen seemed unable to sell as she had sold at first. The 
fact was that she sold as well as ever, but kept back part 
of the proceeds in order to buy gin, and she did this more 
and more till even the unsuspecting Ernest ought to have 
seen that she was not telling the truth. When she sold 
better—that is to say when she did not think it safe to keep 
back more than a certain amount, she got money out of 
him on the plea that she had a longing for this or that, and 
that it would perhaps irreparably damage the baby if her 
longing was denied her. All seemed right, reasonable, and 
unavoidable, nevertheless Ernest saw that until the con- 
finement was over he was likely to have a hard time of it. 
All, however, would then come right again. 


CHAPTER LXXV 


In the month of September, 1860, a girl was born, and 
Ernest was proud and happy. The birth of the child, and 
a rather alarming talk which the doctor had given to Ellen 
sobered her for a few weeks, and it really seemed as though 
his hopes were about to be fulfilled. The expenses of his 
wife’s confinement were heavy, and he was obliged to 
trench upon his savings, but he had no doubt about soon 
recouping this, now that Ellen was herself again; for a 
time indeed his business did revive a little, nevertheless it 
seemed as though the interruption to his prosperity had in 
some way broken the spell of good luck which had attended 
him in the outset; he was still sanguine, however, and 
worked night and day with a will, but there was no more 


362 The Way of All Flesh 


music, or reading, or writing now. His Sunday outings 
were put a stop to, and but for the first floor being let te. 
myself, he would have lost his citadel there too, but he 
seldom used it, for Ellen had to wait more and more upon 
the baby, and, as a consequence, Ernest had to wait more 
and more upon Ellen. 

One afternoon, about a couple of months after the baby 
had been born, and just as my unhappy hero was begin- 
ning to feel more hopeful and therefore better able to bear 
his burdens, he returned from a sale, and found Ellen in 
the same hysterical condition that he had found her in in 
the spring. She said she was again with child, and Ernest 
still believed her. 

All the troubles of the preceding six months began again 
then and there, and grew worse and worse continually. 
Money did not come in quickly, for Ellen cheated him by 
keeping it back, and dealing improperly with the goods he 
bought. When it did come in she got it out of him as before 
on pretexts which it seemed inhuman to inquire into. It 
was always the same story. By and by a new feature be- 
gan to show itself. Ernest had inherited his father’s 
punctuality and exactness as regards money; he liked to 
know the worst of what he had to pay at once; he hated 
having expenses sprung upon him which if not foreseen 
might and ought to have been so, but now bills began to be 
brought to him for things ordered by Ellen without his 
knowledge, or for which he had already given her the 
money. This was awful, and even Ernest turned. When 
he remonstrated with her—not for having bought the 
things, but for having said nothing to him about the 
moneys being owing—Ellen met him with hysteria and 
there was a scene. She had now pretty well forgotten the 
hard times she had known when she had been on her own 
resources and reproached him downright with having 
married her—on that moment the scales fell from Er- 
nest’s eyes as they had fallen when Towneley had said, 
“No, no, no.” He said nothing, but he woke up once for all 


The Way of All Flesh 363 


to the fact that he had made a mistake in marrying. A 

touch had again come which had revealed him to himself. 
He went upstairs to the disused citadel, flung himself 

into the armchair, and covered his face with his hands. 

He still did not know that his wife drank, but he could 
no longer trust her, and his dream of happiness was over. 
He had been saved from the Church—so as by fire, but 
still saved—but what could now save him from his mar- 
riage? He had made the same mistake that he had made 
in wedding himself to the Church, but with a hundred 
times worse results. He had learnt nothing by experience: 
he was an Esau—one of those wretches whose hearts the 
Lord had hardened, who, having ears, heard not, having 
eyes saw not, and who should find no place for repentance 
though they sought it even with tears. 

Yet had he not on the whole tried to find out what the 
ways of God were, and to follow them in singleness of 
heart? To a certain extent, yes; but he had not been 
thorough; he had not given up all for God. He knew that 
very well; he had done little as compared with what he 
might and ought to have done, but still if he was being 
punished for this, God was a hard taskmaster, and one, too, 
who was continually pouncing out upon his unhappy crea- 
tures from ambuscades. In marrying Ellen he had meant 
to avoid a life of sin, and to take the course he believed to 
be moral and right. With his antecedents and surround- 
ings 1t was the most natural thing in the world for him to 
have done, yet in what a frightful position had not his 
morality landed him. Could any amount of immorality 
have placed him in a much worse one? What was morality 
worth if it was not that which on the whole brought a man 
peace at the last, and could anyone have reasonable cer- 
tainty that marriage would do this? It seemed to him 
that in his attempt to be moral he had been following a 
devil which had disguised itself as an angel of light. But 
if so, what ground was there on which a man might rest 
the sole of his foot and tread in reasonable safety? 


364 The Way of All Flesh 


He was still too young to reach the answer, “On com- 
mon sense”—an answer which he would have felt to be 
unworthy of anyone who had an ideal standard. 

However this might be, it was plain that he had now 
done for himself. It had been thus with him all his life. 
If there had come at any time a gleam of sunshine and 
hope, it was to be obscured immediately—why, prison was 
happier than this! There, at any rate, he had had no 
money anxieties, and these were beginning to weigh upon 
him now with all their horrors. He was happier even now 
than he had been at Battersby or at Roughborough, and 
he would not go back, even if he could, to his Cambridge 
life, but for all that the outlook was so gloomy, in fact so 
hopeless, that he felt as if he could have only too gladly 
gone to sleep and died in his armchair once for all. 

As he was musing thus and looking upon the wreck of 
his hopes—for he saw well enough that as long as he was 
linked to Ellen he should never rise as he had dreamed of 
doing—he heard a noise below, and presently a neighbour 
ran upstairs and entered his room hurriedly. 

“Good gracious, Mr. Pontifex,” she exclaimed, “for 
goodness’ sake come down quickly and help. Mrs. 
Pontifex is took with the horrors—and she’s orkard.” 

The unhappy man came down as he was bid and found 
his wife mad with delirium tremens. 

He knew all now. The neighbours thought he must have 
known that his wife drank all along, but Ellen had been so 
artful, and he so simple, that, as I have said, he had had 
no suspicion. “Why,” said the woman who had summoned 
him, “‘she’ll drink anything she can stand up and pay her 
money for.’ Ernest could hardly believe his ears, but when 
the doctor had seen his wife and she had become more 
quiet, he went over to the public house hard by and made 
enquiries, the result of which rendered further doubt 
impossible. The publican took the opportunity to present 
my hero with a bill of several pounds for bottles of spirits 
supplied to his wife, and what with his wife’s confinement 


The Way of All Flesh 365 


and the way business had fallen off, he had not the money 
to pay with, for the sum exceeded the remnant of his 
savings. 

He came to me—not for money, but to tell me his miser- 
able story. I had seen for some time that there was some- 
thing wrong, and had suspected pretty shrewdly what the 
matter was, but of course I said nothing. Ernest and I 
had been growing apart for some time. I was vexed at 
his having married, and he knew I was vexed, though I 
did my best to hide it. 

A man’s friendships are, like his will, invalidated by 
marriage—but they are also no less invalidated by the 
marriage of his friends. The rift in friendship which in- 
variably makes its appearance on the marriage of either of 
the parties to it was fast widening, as it no less invariably 
does, into the great gulf which is fixed between the married 
and the unmarried, and I was beginning to leave my 
protégé to a fate with which I[ had neither right nor power 
to meddle. In fact [had begun to feel him rather a burden; 
I did not so much mind this when I could be of use, but I 
grudged it when I could be of none. He had made his bed 
and he must lie upon it. Ernest had felt all this and had 
seldom come near me till now, one evening late in 1860, he 
called on me, and with a very woe-begone face told me his 
troubles. 

As soon as I found that he no longer liked his wife [I 
forgave him at once, and was as much interested in him 
as ever. There is nothing an old bachelor likes better 
than to find a young married man who wishes he had not 
got married—especially when the case 1s such an extreme 
one that he need not pretend to hope that matters will 
come all right again, or encourage his young friend to 
make the best of it. 

I was myself in favour of a separation, and said I would 
make Ellen an allowance myself—of course intending that 
it should come out of Ernest’s money; but he would not 
hear of this. He had married Ellen, he said, and he must 


866 The Way of All Flesh 


try to reform her. He hated it, but he must try; and find- 
ing him as usual very obstinate I was obliged to acquiesce, 
though with little confidence as to the result. I was vexed 
at seeing him waste himself upon such a barren task, and 
again began to feel him burdensome. I am afraid I showed 
this, for he again avoided me for some time, and, indeed, 
for many months I hardly saw him at all. 

Ellen remained very ill for some days, and then gradu- 
ally recovered. Ernest hardly left her till she was out of 
danger. When she had recovered he got the doctor to 
tell her that if she had such another attack she would 
certainly die; this so frightened her that she took the pledge. 

Then he became more hopeful again. When she was 
sober she was just what she was during the first days of 
her married life, and so quick was he to forget pain, that 
after a few days he was as fond of her as ever. But Ellen 
could not forgive him for knowing what he did. She knew 
that he was on the watch to shield her from temptation, 
and though he did his best to make her think that he had 
no further uneasiness about her, she found the burden of 
her union with respectability grow more and more heavy 
upon her, and looked back more and more longingly upon 
the lawless freedom of the life she had led before she met 
her husband. 

I will dwell no longer on this part of my story. During 
the spring months of 1861 she kept straight—she had had 
her fling of dissipation, and this, together with the im- 
pression made upon her by her having taken the pledge, 
tamed her for a while. The shop went fairly well, and 
enabled Ernest to make the two ends meet. In the spring 
and summer of 1861 he even put by a little money again. 
In the autumn his wife was confined of a boy—a very fine 
one, so everyone said. She soon recovered, and Ernest was 
beginning to breathe freely and be almost sanguine when, 
without a word of warning, the storm broke again. He 
returned one afternoon about two years after his marriage, 
and found his wife lying upon the floor insensible. 


The Way of All Flesh 367 


From this time he became hopeless, and began to go 
visibily down hill. He had been knocked about too much, 
and the luck had gone too long against him. The wear and 
tear of the last three years had told on hin, and though not 
actually ill he was overworked, below par, and unfit for 
any further burden. 

He struggled for a while to prevent himself from find. 
ing this out, but facts were too strong for him. Again he 
called on me and told me what had happened. I was glad 
the crisis had come; | was sorry for Ellen, but a complete 
separation from her was the only chance for her husband. 
Even after this last outbreak he was unwilling to consent 
to this, and talked nonsense about dying at his post, till 
I got tired of him. Each time I saw him the old gloom had 
settled more and more deeply upon his face, and I had 
about made up my mind to put an end to the situation by a 
coup de main, such as bribing Ellen to run away with 
somebody else, or something of that kind, when matters 
settled themselves as usual in a way which I| had not antic- 
ipated. 


CHAP TERT UXXVI 


THE winter had been a trying one. Ernest had only paid 
his way by selling his piano. With this he seemed to cut 
away the last link that connected him with his earlier 
life, and to sink once for all into the small shopkeeper. 
It seemed to him that however low he might sink his pain 
could not last much longer, for he should simply die if it did. 

He hated Ellen now, and the pair lived in open want of 
harmony with each other. If it had not been for his 
children, he would have left her and gone to America, but 
he could not leave the children with Ellen, and as for tak- 
ing them with him he did not know how to do it, nor what 
to do with them when he had got them to America. If he 
had not lost energy he would probably in the end have 
taken the children and gone off, but his nerve was shaken, 
so day after day went by and nothing was done. 


368 The Way of All Flesh 


He had only got a few shillings in the world now, ex- 
cept the value of his stock, which was very little; he could 
get perhaps £3 or £4 by selling his music and what few 
pictures and pieces of furniture still belonged to him. He 
thought of trying to live by his pen, but his writing had 
dropped off long ago; he no longer had an idea in his head. 
Look which way he would he saw no hope; the end, if it 
had not actually come, was within easy distance, and he 
was almost face to face with actual want. When he saw 
people going about poorly clad, or even without shoes 
and stockings, he wondered whether within a few months’ 
time he too should not have to go about in this way. The 
remorseless, resistless hand of fate had caught him in its 
grip and was dragging him down, down, down. Still 
he staggered on, going his daily rounds, buying second- 
hand clothes, and spending his evenings in cleaning and 
mending them. 

One morning, as he was returning from a house at the 
West End where he had bought some clothes from one of 
the servants, he was struck by a small crowd which had 
gathered round a space that had been railed off on the 
grass near one of the paths in the Green Park. 

It was a lovely soft spring morning at the end of March, 
and unusually balmy for the time of year; even Ernest’s 
melancholy was relieved for a while by the look of spring 
that pervaded earth and sky; but it soon returned, and 
smiling sadly he said to himself: ‘It may bring hope to 
others, but for me there can be no hope henceforth.” 

As these words were in his mind he joined the small 
crowd who were gathered round the railings, and saw that 
they were looking at three sheep with very small lambs 
only a day or two old, which had been penned off for shelter 
and protection from the others that ranged the park. 

They were very pretty, and Londoners so seldom get a 
chance of seeing lambs that it was no wonder every one 
stopped to look at them. Ernest observed that no one 
seemed fonder of them than a great lubberly butcher boy, 

‘ 


The Way of All Flesh 369 


who leaned up against the railings with a tray of meat 
upon his shoulder. He was looking at this boy and smil- 
ing at the grotesqueness of his admiration, when he became 
aware that he was being watched intently by a man in 
coachman’s livery, who had also stopped to admire the 
lambs, and was leaning against the opposite side of the 
enclosure. Ernest knew him in a moment as John, his 
father’s old coachman at Battersby, and went up to him 
at once. 

“Why, Master Ernest,”’ said he, with his strong northern 
accent, “I was thinking of you only this very morning,” 
and the pair shook hands heartily. John was in an excel- 
lent place at the West End. He had done very well, he 
said, ever since he had left Battersby, except for the first 
year or two, and that, he said, with a screw of the face, 
had well nigh broke him. 

Ernest asked how this was. 

“Why, you see,” said John, “I was always main fond 
of that lass Ellen, whom you remember running after, 
Master Ernest, and giving your watch to. I expect you 
haven't forgotten that day, have you?” And here he 
laughed. “I don’t know as I be the father of the child she 
carried away with her from Battersby, but I very easily 
may have been. Anyhow, after I had left your papa’s 
place a few days | wrote to Ellen to an address we had 
agreed upon, and told her I would do what I ought to do, 
and so I did, for I married her within a month afterwards. 
Why, Lord love the man, whatever is the matter with 
him?’’—for as he had spoken the last few words of his 
story Ernest had turned white as a sheet, and was leaning 
against the railings. 

“John,” said my hero, gasping for breath, “‘are you sure 
of what you say—are you quite sure you really married 
her?” 

“Of course I am,”’ said John; “I married her before the 
registrar at Letchbury on the 15th of August, 1851.” 

“Give me your arm,” said Ernest, ‘‘and take me into 


370 The Way of All Flesh 


Piccadilly, and put me into a cab, and come with me at 
once, if you can spare time, to Mr. Overton’s at the 
Temple.” 


CHAPTER LXXVII 


I po not think Ernest himself was much more pleased at 
finding that he had never been married than I was. : To 
him, however, the shock of pleasure was positively numb- 
ing in its intensity. As he felt his burden removed, he 
reeled for the unaccustomed lightness of his movements; 
his position was so shattered that his identity seemed to 
have been shattered also; he was as one waking up from a 
horrible nightmare to find himself safe and sound in bed, 
but who can hardly even yet believe that the room is not 
full of armed men who are about to spring upon him. 

“And it is I,” he said, “who not an hour ago complained 
that I was without hope. It is I, who for weeks have been 
railing at fortune, and saying that though she smiled on 
others she never smiled at me. Why, never was anyone 
half so fortunate as I am.” 

“Yes,” said I, ““you have been inoculated for marriage, 
and have recovered.” 

‘And yet,” he said, “‘I was very fond of her till she took 
to drinking.” 

“Perhaps; but is it not Tennyson who has said: ‘’Tis 
better to have loved and lost, then never to have loved at 
alte?) 

“You are an inveterate bachelor,” was the rejoinder. 

Then we had a long talk with John, to whom I gave a 
£5 note upon the spot. He said, “Ellen had used to drink 
at Battersby; the cook had taught her; he had known it, 
but was so fond of her, that he had chanced it and married 
her to save her from the streets and in the hope of being 
able to keep her straight. She had done with him just as- 
she had done with Ernest—made him an excellent wife as 
long as she kept sober, but a very bad one afterwards.” 

“There isn’t,” said John, ‘‘a sweeter-tempered, handier, 


The Way of All Flesh 371 


prettier girl than she was in all England, nor one as knows 
better what a man likes, and how to make him happy, if 
you can keep her from drink; but you can’t keep her; she’s 
that artful she’ll get it under your very eyes, without you 
knowing it. If she can’t get any more of your things to 
pawn or sell, she'll steal her neighbours’. That’s how she 
got into trouble first when I was with her. During the six 
months she was in prison I should have felt happy if I had 
not known she would come out again. And then she did 
come out, and before she had been free a fortnight, she 
began shop-lifting and going on the loose again—and all 
to get money to drink with. So seeing I could do nothing 
with her and that she was just a-killing of me, I left her, 
and came up to London, and went into service again, and I 
did not know what had become of her till you and Mr. 
Ernest here told me. I hope you'll neither of you say 
you’ve seen me.” . 

We assured him we would keep his counsel, and then 
he left us, with many protestations of affection towards 
Ernest, to whom he had always been much attached. 

We talked the situation over, and decided first to get 
the children away, and then to come to terms with Ellen 
concerning their future custody; as for herself, I proposed 
that we should make her an allowance of, say, a pound a 
week to be paid so long as she gave notrouble. Ernest did 
not see where the pound a week was to come from, so I 
eased his mind by saying I would pay it myself. Before the 
day was two hours older we had got the children, about 
whom Ellen had always appeared to be indifferent, and had 
confided them to the care of my laundress, a good motherly 
sort of woman, who took to them and to whom they took 
at once. 

Then came the odious task of getting rid of their un- 
happy mother. Ernest’s heart smote him at the notion of 
the shock the break-up would be to her. He was always 
thinking that people had a claim upon him for some in- 
estimable service they had rendered him, or for some irrep- 


372 The Way of All Flesh 


arable mischief done to them by himself; the case however 
was so clear, that Ernest’s scruples did not offer serious re- 
sistance. 

I did not see why he should have the pain of another 
interview with his wife, so I got Mr. Ottery to manage the 
whole business. It turned out that we need not have har- 
rowed ourselves so much about the agony of mind which 
Ellen would suffer on becoming an outcast again. Ernest 
saw Mrs. Richards, the neighbour who had called him 
down on the night when he had first discovered his wife’s 
drunkenness, and got from her some details of Ellen’s opin- 
ions upon the matter. She did not seem in the least 
conscience-stricken; she said: ‘“Thank goodness, at last!” 
And although aware that her marriage was not a valid one, 
evidently regarded this as a mere detail which it would not 
be worth anybody’s while to go into more particularly. As 
regards his breaking with her, she said it was a good job 
both for him and for her. 

“This life,” she continued, “don’t suit me. Ernest is 
too good for me; he wants a woman as shall be a bit better 
than me, and I want a man that shall be a bit worse than 
him. We should have got on all very well if we had not 
lived together as married folks, but I’ve been used to have 
a little place of my own, however small, for a many years, 
and I don’t want Ernest, or any other man, always hang- 
ing about it. Besides, he is too steady: his being in prison 
hasn’t done him a bit of good—he’s just as grave as those 
as have never been in prison at all, and he never swears nor 
curses, come what may; it makes me afeared of him, and 
therefore I drink the worse. What us poor girls wants is 
not to be jumped up all of a sudden and made honest 
women of: this is too much for us and throws us off our 
perch; what we wants is a regular friend or two, who'll just 
keep us from starving, and force us to be good for a bit 
together now and again. That’s about as much as we can 
stand. He may have the children; he can do better for 
them than I can; and as for his money, he may give it or 


The Way of All Flesh 373 


keep it as he likes; he’s never done me any harm, and I 
shall let him alone; but if he means me to have it, I suppose 
I’d better have it.”—And have it she did. 

“And I,” thought Ernest to himself again when the ar- 
rangement was concluded, ‘‘am the man who thought him- 
self unlucky!” 

I may as well say here all that need be said further 
about Ellen. For the next three years she used to call 
regularly at Mr. Ottery’s every Monday morning for her 
pound. She was always neatly dressed, and looked so 
quiet and pretty that no one would have suspected her 
antecedents. At first she wanted sometimes to anticipate, 
but after three or four ineffectual attempts—on each of 
which occasions she told a most pitiful story—she gave it 
up and took her money regularly without a word. Once 
she came with a bad black eye, “‘which a boy had throwed 
a stone and hit her by mistake”; but on the whole she 
looked pretty much the same at the end of the three years 
as she had done at the beginning. Then she explained 
that she was going to be married again. Mr. Ottery saw 
her on this, and pointed out to her that she would very 
likely be again committing bigamy by doing so. ‘You 
may call it what you like,” she replied, “but I am going 
off to America with Bill the butcher’s man, and we hope 
Mr. Pontifex won’t be too hard on us and stop the allow- 
ance.” Ernest was little likely to do this, so the pair went 
in peace. I believe it was Bill who had blacked her eye, 
and she liked him all the better for it. 

From one or two little things I have been able to gather 
that the couple got on very well together, and that in Bill 
she has found a partner better suited to her than either 
John or Ernest. On his birthday Ernest generally re- 
ceives an envelope with an American postmark containing 
a bookmarker with a flaunting text upon it, or a moral 
kettleholder, or some other similar small token of recogni- 
tion, but no letter. Of the children she has taken no no- 
tice. 


& 


374 The Way of All Flesh 


CHAPTER LXXVIII 


ERNEST was now well turned twenty-six years old, and in 
little more than another year and a half would come into 
possession of his money. I saw no reason for letting him 
have it earlier than the date fixed by Miss Pontifex herself; 
at the same time I did not like his continuing the shop at 
Blackfriars after the present crisis. It was not till now 
that I fully understood how much he had suffered, nor how 
nearly his supposed wife’s habits had brought him to actual 
want. 

I had indeed noted the old, wan, worn look settling upon 
his face, but was either too indolent or too hopeless of being 
able to sustain a protracted and successful warfare with 
Ellen to extend the sympathy and make the inquiries 
which I suppose I ought to have made. And yet I hardly 
know what I could have done, for nothing short of his 
finding out what he had found out would have detached 
him from his wife, and nothing could do him much good as 
long as he continued to live with her. 

After all I suppose I was right; I suppose things did 
turn out all the better in the end for having been left to 
settle themselves—at any rate whether they did or did 
not, the whole thing was in too great a muddle for me 
to venture to tackle it so long as Ellen was upon the scene; 
now, however, that she was removed, all my interest in 
my godson revived, and I turned over many times in my 
mind what I had better do with him. 

It was now three and a half years since he had come 
up to London and begun to live, so to speak, upon his 
own account. Of these years, six months had been spent 
as a clergyman, six months in gaol, and for two and a 
half years he had been acquiring twofold experience in the 
ways of business and of marriage. He had failed, I may 
say, in everything that he had undertaken, even as a 
prisoner; yet his defeats had been always, as it seemed to 
me, something so like victories, that I was satisfied of his 


The Way of All Flesh 375 


being worth all the pains I could bestow upon him; my only 
fear was lest I should meddle with him when it might be 
better for him to be let alone. On the whole I concluded 
that a three and a half years’ apprenticeship to a rough 
life was enough; the shop had done much for him; it had 
kept him going after a fashion, when he was in great need; 
it had thrown him upon his own resources, and taught him 
to see profitable openings all around him, where a few 
months before he would have seen nothing but insuperable 
difficulties; it had enlarged his sympathies by making him 
understand the lower classes, and not confining his view of 
life to that taken by gentlemen only. When he went about 
the streets and saw the books outside the second-hand 
book-stalls, the bric-a-brac in the curiosity shops, and the 
infinite commercial activity which is omnipresent around 
us, he understood it, and sympathised with it as he could 
never have done if he had not kept a shop himself. 

He has often told me that when he used to travel on 
a railway that overlooked populous suburbs, and looked 
down upon street after street of dingy houses, he used to 
wonder what kind of people lived in them, what they did 
and felt, and how far it was like what he did and felt 
himself. Now, he said, he knew all about it. I am not 
very familiar with the writer of the Odyssey (who, by the 
way, I suspect strongly of having been a clergyman), but 
he assuredly hit the right nail on the head when he 
epitomised his typical wise man as knowing “the ways 
and farings of many men.” What culture is comparable 


to this? What a lie, what a sickly, debilitating debauch — 


did not Ernest’s school and university career now seem to 
him, in comparison with his life in prison and as a tailor 
in Blackfriars. I have heard him say he would have gone 
through all he had suffered if it were only for the deeper 
insight it gave him into the spirit of the Grecian and the 
Surrey pantomimes. What confidence again in his own 
power to swim if thrown into deep waters had not he won 
through his experiences during the last three years! 


376 The Way of All Flesh 


But, as I have said, I thought my godson had now seen 
as much of the under currents of life as was likely to 
be of use to him, and that it was time he began to live in 
a style more suitable to his prospects. His aunt had wished 
him to kiss the soil, and he had kissed it with a vengeance; 
but I did not like the notion of his coming suddenly from 
the position of a small shopkeeper to that of a man with an 
income of between three and four thousand a year. Too 
sudden a jump from bad fortune to good is just as danger- 
ous as one from good to bad; besides, poverty is very wear- 
ing; it is a quasi-embryonic condition, through which a man 
had better pass if he is to hold his later developments 
securely, but like measles or scarlet fever he had better 
have it mildly and get it over early. 

No man is safe from losing every penny he has in the 
world, unless he has had his facer. How often do I not 
hear middle-aged women and quiet family men say that 
they have no speculative tendency; they never had touched, 
and never would touch, any but the very soundest, best 
reputed investments, and as for unlimited liability, oh, 
dear! dear! and they throw up their hands and eyes. 

Whenever a person is heard to talk thus he may be 
recognised as the easy prey of the first adventurer who 
comes across him; he will commonly, indeed, wind up his 
discourse by saying that in spite of all his natural caution, 
and his well knowing how foolish speculation is, yet there 
are some investments which are called speculative but in 
reality are not so, and he will pull out of his pocket the 
prospectus of a Cornish gold mine. It is only on having 
actually lost money that one realises what an awful thing 
the loss of it is, and finds out how easily it is lost by 
those who venture out of the middle of the most beaten 
path. Ernest had had his facer, as he had had his attack 
of poverty, young, and sufficiently badly for a sensible man 
to be little likely to forget it. I can fancy few pieces of 
good fortune greater than this as happening to any man, 
provided, of course, that he is not damaged irretrievably. 


The Way of All Flesh 377 


So strongly do I feel on this subject that if I had my —— 


way I would have a speculation master attached to every 
school. The boys would be encouraged to read the Money 
Market Review, the Railway News, and all the best finan- 
cial papers, and should establish a stock exchange amongst 
themselves in which pence should stand as pounds. Then 
let them see how this making haste to get rich moneys 
out in actual practice. There might be a prize awarded 
by the head-master to the most prudent dealer, and the 
boys who lost their money time after time should be dis- 
missed. Of course if any boy proved to have a genius for 
speculation and made money—well and good, let him 
speculate by all means. 

If Universities were not the worst teachers in the world 
I should like to see professorships of speculation established 
at Oxford and Cambridge. When I reflect, however, that 
the only things worth doing which Oxford and Cambridge 
can do well are cooking, cricket, rowing and games, of 
which there is no professorship, I fear that the establish- 
ment of a professorial chair would end in teaching young 
men neither how to speculate, nor how not to speculate, 
but would simply turn them out as bad speculators. 

I heard of one case in which a father actually carried 
my idea into practice. He wanted his son to learn how 
little confidence was to be placed in glowing prospectuses 
and flaming articles, and found him five hundred pounds 
which he was to invest according to his lights. The father 
expected he would lose the money; but it did not turn out 
so in practice, for the boy took so much pains and played 
so cautiously that the money kept growing and growing 
till the father took it away again, increment and all—as he 
was pleased to say, in self defense. 

I had made my own mistakes with money about the 
year 1846, when everyone else was making them. Fora 
few years I had been so scared and had suffered so severely, 
that when (owing to the good advice of the broker who 
had advised my father and grandfather before me) I came 


378 The Way of All Flesh 


out in the end a winner and not a loser, I played no more 
pranks, but kept henceforward as nearly in the middle of 
the middle rut as I could. I tried in fact to keep my money 
rather than to make more of it. I had done with Ernest’s 
money as with my own—that is to say I had let it alone 
after investing it in Midland ordinary stock according to 
Miss Pontifex’s instructions. No amount of trouble would 
have been likely to have increased my godson’s estate one 
half so much as it had increased without my taking any 
trouble at all. 

Midland stock at the end of August 1850, when I sold 
out Miss Pontifex’s debentures, stood at £32 per £100. 
I invested the whole of Ernest’s £15,000 at this price, and 
did not change the investment till a few months before the 
time of which I have been writing lately—that is to say 
until September, 1861. I then sold at £129 per share and 
invested in London and North-Western ordinary stock, 
which I was advised was more likely to rise than Midlands 
now were. I bought the London and North-Western 
stock at £93 per £100, and my godson now in 1882 still 
holds it. 

The original £15,000 had increased in eleven years to 
over £60,000; the accumulated interest, which, of course, 
I had re-invested, had come to about £10,000 more, so that 
Ernest was then worth over £70,000. At present he is 
worth nearly double that sum, and all as the result of leav- 
ing well alone. 

Large as his property now was, it ought to be increased 
still further during the year and a half that remained of 
his minority, so that on coming of age he ought to have an 
income of at least £3500 a year. 

I wished him to understand bookkeeping by double 
entry. I had myself as a young man been compelled to 
master this not very difficult art; having acquired it, I 
have become enamoured of it, and consider it the most 
necessary branch of any young man’s education after read- 
ing and writing. J was determined, therefore, that Ernest 


The Way of All Flesh 379 


should master it, and proposed that he should become my 
steward, bookkeeper, and the manager of my hoardings, 
for so I called the sum which my ledger showed to have 
accumulated from £15,000 to £70,000. I told him I was 
going to begin to spend the income as soon as it had 
amounted up to £80,000. 

A few days after Ernest’s discovery that he was still a 
bachelor, while he was still at the very beginning of the 
honeymoon, as it were, of his renewed unmarried life, I 
broached my scheme, desired him to give up his shop, and 
offered him £300 a year for managing (so far indeed as it 
required any managing) his own property. This £300 
a year, I need hardly say, I made him charge to the 
estate. 

If anything had been wanting to complete his happi- 
ness it was this. Here, within three or four days he found 
himself freed from one of the most hideous, hopeless 
liaisons imaginable, and at the same time raised from a life 
of almost squalor to the enjoyment of what would to him be 
a handsome income. 

“A pound a week,” he thought, “for Ellen, and the rest 
for myself.” 

“No,” said I, “we will charge Ellen’s pound a week to 
the estate also. You must have a clear £300 for your- 
self.” 

I fixed upon this sum, because it was the one which Mr. 
Disraeli gave Coningsby when Coningsby was at the low- 
est ebb of his fortunes. Mr. Disraeli evidently thought 
£300 a year the smallest sum on which Coningsby could be 
expected to live, and make the two ends meet; with this, 
however, he thought his hero could manage to get along for 
a year or two. In 1862, of which I am now writing, prices 
had risen, though not so much as they have since done; on 
the other hand Ernest had had less expensive antecedents 
than Coningsby, so on the whole I thought £300 a year 
would be about the right thing for him. 


380 The Way of All Flesh 


CHAPTER LXXIx 


THE question now arose what was to be done with the 
children. I explained to Ernest that their expenses must 
be charged to the estate, and showed him how small a hole 
all the various items I proposed to charge would make in 
the income at my disposal. He was beginning to make 
difficulties, when I quieted him by pointing out that the 
money had all come to me from his aunt over his own head, 
and reminded him there had been an understanding be- 
tween her and me that I should do much as I| was doing, 
if occasion should arise. 

He wanted his children to be brought up in the fresh 
pure air, and among other children who were happy and 
contented; but being still ignorant of the fortune that 
awaited him, he insisted that they should pass their ear- 
lier years among the poor rather than the rich. I remon- 
strated, but he was very decided about it; and when | 
reflected that they were illegitimate, I was not sure but 
that what Ernest proposed might be as well for everyone 
in the end. They were still so young that it did not much 
matter where they were, so long as they were with kindly, 
decent people, and in a healthy neighbourhood. 

“T shall be just as unkind to my children,” he said, 
‘as my grandfather was to my father, or my father to me. 
If they did not succeed in making their children love them, 
neither shall I. I say to myself that I should like to do 
so, but so did they. I can make sure that they shall not 
know how much they would have hated me if they had 
had much to do with me, but this is all I can do. If I 
must ruin their prospects, let me do so at a reasonable 
time before they are old enough to feel it.” 

He mused a little and added with a laugh:— 

“A man first quarrels with his father about three- 
quarters of a year before he is born. It is then he insists 
on setting up a separate establishment; when this has been 
once agreed to, the more complete the separation for ever 


The Way of All Flesh 381 


after the better for both.” Then he said more seriously: 
“T want to put the children where they will be well and 
happy, and where they will not be betrayed into the misery 
of false expectations.’ 

Tnithelend he remembered that in his Sunday walks he 
had more than once seen a couple who lived on the water- 
side a few miles below Gravesend, just where the sea was 
beginning, and who he thought would do. They had a 
family of their own fast coming on and the children seemed 
to thrive; both father and mother indeed were com- 
fortable, well grown folks, in whose hands young people 
would be likely to have as fair a chance of coming to a good 
development as in those of any whom he knew. 

We went down to see this couple, and as I thought no 
less well of them than Ernest did, we offered them a 
pound a week to take the children and bring them up as 
though they were their own. They jumped at the offer, 
and in another day or two we brought the children down 
and left them, feeling that we had done as well as we could 
by them; at any rate for the present. Then Ernest sent 
his small stock of goods to Debenham’s, gave up the house 
he had taken two and a half years previously, and re- 
turned to civilisation. 

I had expected that he would now rapidly recover, and 
was disappointed to see him get as I thought decidedly 
worse. Indeed, before long I thought him looking so ill 
that I insisted on his going with me to consult one of the 
most eminent doctors in London. This gentleman said 
there was no acute disease but that my young friend was 
suffering from nervous prostration, the result of long and 
severe mental suffering, from which there was no remedy 
except time, prosperity and rest. 

He said that Ernest must have broken down later on, 
but that he might have gone on for some months yet. 
It was the suddenness of the relief from tension which had 
knocked him over now. 

“Cross him,” said the doctor, “‘at once. Crossing is the 


382 The Way of All Flesh 


great medical discovery of the age. Shake him out of 
himself by shaking something else into him.” 

I had not told him that money was no object to us, and 
I think he had reckoned me up as not over rich. He con- 
tinued :— 

“Seeing is a mode of touching, touching is a mode of 
feeding, feeding is a mode of assimilation, assimilation is a 
mode of re-creation and reproduction, and this is crossing— 
shaking yourself into something else and something else 
into you.” He spoke laughingly, but it was plain he was 
serious. He continued :— 

“People are always coming to me who want crossing, or 
change, if you prefer it, and who I know have not money 
enough to let them get away from London. This has set 
me thinking how I can best cross them even if they cannot 
leave home, and I have made a list of cheap London 
amusements which I recommend to my patients; none of 
them cost more than a few shillings or take more than half 
a day or a day.” 

I explained that there was no occasion to consider money 
in this case. : 

“T am glad of it,” he said, still laughing. ‘The home- 
opathists use aurum as a medicine, but they do not give 
it in large doses enough; if you can dose your young friend 
with this pretty freely you will soon bring him round. 
However, Mr. Pontifex is not well enough to stand so 
great a change as going abroad yet; from what you tell 
me I should think he had had as much change lately as is 
good for him. If he were to go abroad now he would prob- 
ably be taken seriously ill within a week. We must wait 
till he has recovered tone a little more. I will begin by 
ringing my London changes on him.” 

He thought a little and then said :— 

“T have found the Zoological Gardens of service to many 
of my patients. I should prescribe for Mr. Pontifex a 
course of the larger mammals. Don’t let him think he is 
taking them medicinally, but let him go to their house 


The Way of All Flesh 383 


twice a week for a fortnight, and stay with the hippopot- 
amus, the rhinoceros, and the elephants, till they begin to 
bore him. I find these beasts do my patients more good 
than any others. The monkeys are not a wide enough 
cross; they do not stimulate sufficiently. The larger 
carnivora are unsympathetic. The reptiles. are worse 
than useless, and the marsupials are not much better. 
Birds again, except parrots, are not very beneficial; he may 
look at them now and again, but with the elephants and 
the pig tribe generally he should mix just now as freely as 
possible. | 

“Then, you know, to prevent monotony I should send 
him, say, to morning service at the Abbey before he goes. 
He need not stay longer than the Te Deum. I don’t know 
why, but Jubzlates are seldom satisfactory. Just let him 
look in at the Abbey, and sit quietly in Poet’s Corner till 
the main part of the music is over. Let him do this two or 
three times, not more, before he goes to the Zoo. 

“Then next day send him down to Gravesend by boat. 
By all means let him go to the theatres in the evenings— 
and then let him come to me again in a fortnight.” 

Had the doctor been less eminent in his profession I 
should have doubted whether he was in earnest, but I 
knew him to be a man of business who would neither waste 
his own time nor that of his patients. As soon as we were 
out of the house we took a cab to Regent’s Park, and spent 
a couple of hours in sauntering around the different houses. 
Perhaps it was on account of what the doctor had told me, 
but I certainly became aware of a feeling I had never ex- 
perienced before. I mean that I was receiving an influx of 
new life, or deriving new ways of looking at life—which 
is the same thing—by the process. I found the doctor 
quite right in his estimate of the larger mammals as the 
ones which on the whole were most beneficial, and ob- 
served that Ernest, who had heard nothing of what the 
doctor had said to me, lingered instinctively in front of 
them. As for the elephants, especially the baby elephant, 


384 The Way of All Flesh 


he seemed to be drinking in large draughts of their lives 
to the recreation and regeneration of his own. 

We dined in the gardens, and I noticed with pleasure 
that Ernest’s appetite was already improved. Since 
this time, whenever I have been a little out of sorts my- 
self I have at once gone up to Regent’s Park, and have 
invariably been benefited. I mention this here in the 
hope that some one or other of my readers may find the 
hint a useful one. 

At the end of his fortnight my hero was much better, 
more so even than our friend the doctor had expected. 
“Now,” he said, ‘Mr. Pontifex may go abroad, and the 
sooner the better. Let him stay a couple of months.” 

This was the first Ernest had heard about his going 
abroad, and he talked about my not being able to spare 
him for so long. I soon made this all right. 

“Tt is now the beginning of April,” said I; “go down to 
Marseilles at once, and take the steamer to Nice. Then 
saunter down the Riviera to Genoa—from Genoa go to 
Florence, Rome and Naples, and come home by way of 
Venice and the Italian lakes.” 

“And won’t you come too?” said he, eagerly. 

I said I did not mind if I did, so we began to make our 
arrangements next morning, and completed them within a 
very few days. 


CHAPTER LXXX 


WE left by the night mail, crossing from Dover. The night 
was soft, and there was a bright moon upon the sea. 
“Don’t you love the smell of grease about the engine of 
a Channel steamer? Isn’t there a lot of hope in it?” 
said Ernest to me, for he had been to Normandy one sum- 
mer as a boy with his father and mother, and the smell 
carried him back to days before those in which he had 
begun to bruise himself against the great outside world. 
“I always think one of the best parts of going abroad is 


The Way of All Flesh 385 


the first thud of the piston, and the first gurgling of the 
water when the paddle begins to strike it.” 

It was very dreamy getting out at Calais, and trudging 
about with luggage in a foreign town at an hour when we 
were generally both of us in bed and fast asleep, but we 
settled down to sleep as soon as we got into the railway 
carriage, and dozed till we had passed Amiens. Then 
waking when the first signs of morning crispness were 
beginning to show themselves, I saw that Ernest was 
already devouring every object we passed with quick, 
sympathetic curiousness. There was not a peasant in a 
blouse driving his cart betimes along the road to market, 
not a signalman’s wife in her husband’s hat and coat 
waving a green flag, not a shepherd taking out his sheep 
to the dewy pastures, not a bank of opening cowslips as 
we passed through the railway cuttings, but he was drink- 
ing it all in with an enjoyment too deep for words. The 
name of the engine that drew us was Mozart, and Ernest 
liked this too. 

We reached Paris by six, and had just time to get across 
the town and take a morning express train to Marseilles, 
but before noon my young friend was tired out and had 
resigned himself to a series of sleeps which were seldom 
intermitted for more than an hour or so together. He 
fought against this for a time, but in the end consoled him- 
self by saying it was so nice to have so much pleasure that 
he could afford to throw a lot of it away. Having found 
a theory on which to justify himself, he slept in peace. 

At Marseilles we rested, and there the excitement of the 
change proved, as I had half feared it would, too much for 
my godson’s still enfeebled state. For a few days he was 
really ill, but after this he righted. For my own part I 
reckon being ill as one of the great pleasures of life, pro- 
vided one is not too ill and is not obliged to work till one is 
better. J remember being ill once in a foreign hotel myself 
and how much I enjoyed it. To lie there careless of every- 
thing, quiet and warm, and with no weight upon the mind, 


386 The Way of All Flesh 


to hear the clinking of the plates in the far-off kitchen as 
the scullion rinsed them and put them by; to watch the 
soft shadows come and go upon the ceiling as the sun came 
out or went behind a cloud; to listen to the pleasant mur- 
muring of the fountain in the court below, and the shaking 
of the bells on the horses’ collars and the clink of their 
hoofs upon the ground as the flies plagued them; not only 
to be a lotus-eater but to know that it was one’s duty to be 
a lotus-eater. ‘Oh,’ I thought to myself, “If I could only 
now, having so forgotten care, drop off to sleep for ever, 
would not this be a better piece of fortune than any I can 
ever hope for?” 

Of course it would, but we would not take it though it 
were offered us. No matter what evil may befall us, we 
will mostly abide by it and see it out. 

I could see that Ernest felt much as I had felt myself. 
He said little, but noted everything. Once only did he 
frighten me. He called me to his bedside just as it was 
getting dusk and said in a grave, quiet manner that he 
should like to speak to me. 

“T have been thinking,” he said, “that I may perhaps 
never recover from this illness, and in case I do not I 
should like you to know that there is only one thing which 
weighs upon me. I refer,” he continued after a slight 
pause, “to my conduct towards my father and mother. 
I have been much too good to them. I treated them much 
too. considerately,” on which he broke into a smile which 
assured me that there was nothing seriously amiss with 
him. 

On the walls of his bedroom were a series of French 
Revolution prints representing events in the life of Ly- 
curgus. There was “Grandeur d’4me de Lycurgue,” and 
*‘Lycurgue consulte l’oracle,” and then there was “Cal- 
ciope 4 la Cour.” Under this was written in French and 
Spanish: “‘Modéle de grace et de beauté, la jeune Calciope 
non moins sage que belle avait mérité l’estime et |’attache- 
ment du vertueux Lycurgue. Vivement épris de tant de 


The Way of All Flesh 387 


charmes, l’illustre philosophe la conduisait dans le temple 
de Junon, ot ils s’unirent par un serment sacré. Aprés 
cette auguste cérémonie Lycurgue s’empressa de conduire 
sa jeune épouse au palais de son frére Polydecte, Roi de 
Lacédémon. Seigneur, lui dit-il, la vertueuse Calciope 
vient de recevoir mes voeux aux pieds de sautels, }’ose vous 
prier d’approuver cette union. Le Roi témoigna d’abord 
quelque surprise, mais l’estime qu’il avait pour son frére 
lui inspira une réponse pleine de bienveillance. I] s’ap- 
procha aussitot de Calciope qu’il embrassa tendrement, 
combla ensuite Lycurgue de prévenances et parut trés 
satisfait.”’ 

He called my attention to this and then said somewhat 
timidly that he would rather have married Ellen than 
Calciope. I saw he was hardening and made no hesitation 
about proposing that in another day or two we should pro- 
ceed upon our journey. 

I will not weary the reader by taking him with us over 
beaten ground. We stopped at Siena, Cortona, Orvieto, 
Perugia and many other cities, and then after a fortnight 
passed between Rome and Naples went to the Venetian 
provinces and visited all those wondrous towns that lie 
between the southern slopes of the Alps and the northern 
ones of the Apennines, coming back at last by the S. 
Gothard. I doubt whether he had enjoyed the trip more 
than I did myself, but it was not till we were on the point 
of returning that Ernest had recovered strength enough to 
be called fairly well, and it was not for many months that 
he so completely lost all sense of the wounds which the 
last four years had inflicted on him as to feel as though 
there were a scar and a scar only remaining. 

They say that when people have lost an arm or a foot 
they feel pains in it now and again for a long while after 
they have lost it. One pain which he had almost forgotten 
came upon him on his return to England, [ mean the sting 
of his having been imprisoned. As long as he was only a 
small shopkeeper his imprisonment mattered nothing; no- 


388 The Way of All Flesh 


body knew of it, and if they had known they would not 
have cared; now, however, though he was returning to his 
old position he was returning to it disgraced, and the pain 
from which he had been saved in the first instance by sur- 
roundings so new that he had hardly recognised his own 
identity in the middle of them, came on him as from a 
wound inflicted yesterday. 

He thought of the high resolves which he had made in 
prison about using his disgrace as a vantage ground of 
strength rather than trying to make people forget it. 
“That was all very well then,” he thought to himself, 
“when the grapes were beyond my reach, but now it is 
different.”’ Besides, who but a prig would set himself high 
aims, or make high resolves at all? 

Some of his old friends, on learning that he had got rid 
of his supposed wife and was now comfortably off again, 
wanted to renew their acquaintance; he was grateful to 
them and sometimes tried to meet their advances half way, 
but it did not do, and ere long he shrank back into himself, 
pretending not to know them. An infernal demon of hon- 
esty haunted him which made him say to himself: “These 
men know a great deal, but do not know all—if they did 
they would cut me—and therefore I have no right to their 
acquaintance.” 

He thought that everyone except himself was sans peur 
et sans reproche. Of course they must be, for if they had 
not been, would they not have been bound to warn all who 
had anything to do with them of their deficiencies? Well, 
he could not do this, and he would not have people’s 
acquaintance under false pretences, so he gave up even 
hankering after rehabilitation and fell back upon his old 
tastes for music and literature. 

Of course he has long since found out how silly all this 
was, how silly I mean in theory, for in practice it worked 
better than it ought to have done, by keeping him free 
from liaisons which would have tied his tongue and made 
him see success elsewhere than where he came in time to 


The Way of All Flesh 389 


see it. He did what he did instinctively and for no other 
reason than because it was most natural to him. So far as 
he thought at all, he thought wrong, but what he did was 
right. I said something of this kind to him once not so 
very long ago, and told him he had always aimed high. 
“I never aimed at all,” he replied a little indignantly, 
“‘and you may be sure I should have aimed low enough if I 
had thought I had got the chance.” 

I suppose after all that no one whose mind was not, to 
put it mildly, abnormal, ever yet aimed very high out of 
pure malice aforethought. I once saw a fly alight on a 
cup of hot coffee on which the milk had formed a thin skin; 
he perceived his extreme danger, and I noted with what 
ample strides and almost supermuscan effort he struck 
across the treacherous surface and made for the edge of the 
cup—for the ground was not solid enough to let him raise 
himself from it by his wings. As I watched him I fancied 
that so supreme a moment of difficulty and danger might 
leave him with an increase of moral and physical power 
which might even descend in some measure to his offspring. 
But surely he would not have got the increased moral 
power if he could have helped it, and he will not knowingly 
alight upon another cup of hot coffee. The more I see, 
the more sure I am that it does not matter why people 
do the right thing so long only as they do it, nor why they 
may have done the wrong if they have done it. The result 
depends upon the thing done and the motive goes for 
nothing. I have read somewhere, but cannot remember 
where, that in some country district there was once a 
great scarcity of food, during which the poor suffered 
acutely; many indeed actually died of starvation, and all 
were hard put toit. In one village, however, there was 
a poor widow with a family of young children, who, though 
she had small visible means of subsistence, still looked 
well-fed and comfortable, as also did all her little ones. 
“How,” everyone asked, “‘did they manage to live?” It 
was plain they had a secret, and it was equally plain that it 


390 The Way of All Flesh 


could be no good one; for there came a hurried, hunted 
look over the poor woman’s face if anyone alluded to the 
way in which she and hers throve when others starved; the 
family, moreover, were sometimes seen out at unusual 
hours of the night, and evidently brought things home, 
which could hardly have been honestly come by. They 
knew they were under suspicion, and, being hitherto of 
excellent name, it made them very unhappy, for it must 
be confessed that they believed what they did to be un- 
canny if not absolutely wicked; nevertheless, in spite of 
this they throve, and kept their strength when all their 
neighbours were pinched. 

At length matters came to a head and the clergyman 
of the parish cross-questioned the poor woman so closely 
that with many tears and a bitter sense of degradation she 
confessed the truth; she and her children went into the 
hedges and gathered snails, which they made into broth 
and ate—could she ever be forgiven? Was there any hope 
of salvation for her either in this world or the next after 
such unnatural conduct? 

So again I have heard of an old dowager countess whose 
money was all in Consols; she had had many sons, and 
in her anxiety to give the younger ones a good start, 
wanted a larger income than Consols would give her. 
She consulted her solicitor and was advised to sell her 
Consols and invest in the London and North-Western 
Railway, then at about 85. This was to her what eating 
snails was to the poor widow whose story I have told 
above. With shame and grief, as of one doing an unclean 
thing—but her boys must have their start—she did as 
she was advised. Then for a long while she could not sleep 
at night and was haunted by a presage of disaster. Yet 
what happened? She started her boys, and in a few years 
found her capital doubled into the bargain, on which she 
sold out and went back again to Consols and died in the 
full blessedness of fund-holding. 

She thought, indeed, that she was doing a wrong and 


The Way of All Flesh 391 


dangerous thing, but this had absolutely nothing to do with 
it. Suppose she had invested in the full confidence of a 
recommendation by some eminent London banker whose 
advice was bad, and so had lost all her money, and sup- 
pose she had done this with a light heart and with no con- 
viction of sin—would her innocence of evil purpose and 
the excellence of her motive have stood her in any stead? 
Not they. 

But to return to my story. Towneley gave my hero 
most trouble. Towneley, as I have said, knew that Ernest 
would have money soon, but Ernest did not of course know 
that he knew it. Towneley was rich himself, and was 
married now; Ernest would be rich soon, had bona fide in- 
tended to be married already, and would doubtless marry 
a lawful wife lateron. Such a man was worth taking pains 
with, and when Towneley one day met Ernest in the street, 
and Ernest tried to avoid him, Towneley would not have 
it, but with his usual quick good nature read his thoughts, 
caught him, morally speaking, by the scruff of his neck, 
and turned him laughingly inside out, telling him he would 
have no such nonsense. 

Towneley was just as much Ernest’s idol now as he had 
ever been, and Ernest, who was very easily touched, felt 
more gratefully and warmly than ever towards him, but 
there was an unconscious something which was stronger 
than Towneley, and made my hero determine to break 
with him more determinedly perhaps than with any other 
living person; he thanked him in a low, hurried voice and 
pressed his hand, while tears came into his eyes in spite 
of all his efforts to repress them. “If we meet again,” 
he said, “‘do not look at me, but if hereafter you hear of 
me writing things you do not like, think of me as chari- 
tably as you can,” and so they parted. 

““Towneley is a good fellow,” said I, gravely, “and you 
should not have cut him.” 

“Towneley,” he answered, “‘is not only a good fellow, 
but he is without exception the very best man I ever saw 


392 The Way of All Flesh 


in my life—except,” he paid me the compliment of say- 
ing, “ yourself; Towneley is my notion of everything which 
I should most like to be—but there is no real solidarity 
between us. I[ should be in perpetual fear of losing his good 
opinion if I said things he did not like, and I mean to say 
a great many things,” he continued more merrily, “which 
Towneley will not like.” 

A man, as I have said already, can give up father and 
mother for Christ’s sake tolerably easily for the most part, 
but it is not so easy to give up people like Towneley. 


CHAPTER LXXXI 


So he fell away from all old friends except myself and three 
or four old intimates of my own, who were as sure to take 
to him as he to them, and who like myself enjoyed getting 
hold of a young fresh mind. Ernest attended to the keep- 
ing of my account books whenever there was anything 
which could possibly be attended to, which there seldom 
was, and spent the greater part of the rest of his time in 
adding to the many notes and tentative essays which had 
already accumulated in his portfolios. Anyone who was 
used to writing could see at a glance that literature was 
his natural development, and I was pleased at seeing him 
settle down to it so spontaneously. I was less pleased, 
however, to observe that he would still occupy himself 
with none but the most serious, I had almost said solemn, 
subjects, just as he never cared about any but the most 
serious kind of music. 

I said to him one day that the very slender reward which 
God had attached to the pursuit of serious inquiry was a 
sufficient proof that He disapproved of it, or at any rate 
that he did not set much store by it nor wish to encourage 
LC. 

He said: “Oh, don’t talk about rewards. Look at 
Milton, who only got £5 for ‘Paradise Lost.’”’ 

“And a great deal too much,” I rejoined promptly. 


The Way of All Flesh - $98 


*“T would have given him twice as much myself not to. __ 


have written it at all.” 

Ernest was a little shocked. “At any rate,” he said 
laughingly, “I don’t write poetry.” 

This was a cut at me, for my burlesques were, of course, 
written in rhyme. So I dropped the matter. 

After a time he took it into his head to reopen the 
question of his getting £300 a year for doing, as he said, 
absolutely nothing, and said he would try to find some 
employment which should bring him in enough to live 
upon. 

I laughed at this but let him alone. He tried and tried 
very hard for a long while, but I need hardly say was un- 
successful. The older I grow, the more convinced I be- 
come of the folly and credulity of the public; but at the 
same time the harder do I see it is to impose oneself upon 
that folly and credulity. 

He tried editor after editor with article after article. 
Sometimes an editor listened to him and told him to leave 
his articles; he almost invariably, however, had them re- 
turned to him in the end with a polite note saying that they 
were not suited for the particular paper to which he had 
sent them. And yet many of these very articles appeared 
in his later works, and no one complained of them, not at 
least on the score of bad literary workmanship. “I see,” 
he said to me one day, “that demand is very imperious, 
and supply must be very suppliant.” 

Once, indeed, the editor of an important monthly maga- 
zine accepted an article from him, and he thought he had 
now got a footing in the literary world. The article was to 
appear in the next issue but one, and he was to receive 
proof from the printers in about ten days or a fortnight; 
but week after week passed and there was no proof; month 
after month went by and there was still no room for Er- 
nest’s article; at length after about six months the editor 
one morning told him that he had filled every number of 
his review for the next ten months, but that his article 


394 The Way of All Flesh 


should definitely appear. On this he insisted on having 
his MS. returned to him. 

Sometimes his articles were actually published, and he 
found the editor had edited them according to his own 
fancy, putting in jokes which he thought were funny, or 
cutting out the very passage which Ernest had considered 
the point of the whole thing, and then, though the articles 
appeared, when it came to paying for them it was another 
’ matter, and he never saw his money. “Editors,” he said 
to me one day about this time, “are like the people who 
bought and sold in the book of Revelation; there is not one 
but has the mark of the beast upon him.” 

At last after months of disappointment and many a 
tedious hour wasted in dingy ante-rooms (and of all ante- 
rooms those of editors appear to me to be the dreariest), 
he got a bona fide offer of employment from one of the first 
class weekly papers through an introduction I was able to 
get for him from one who had powerful influence with the 
paper in question. The editor sent him a dozen long books 
upon varied and difficult subjects, and told him to review 
them in a single article within a week. In one book there 
was an editorial note to the effect that the writer was to 
be condemned. Ernest particularly admired the book he 
was desired to condemn, and feeling how hopeless it was 
for him to do anything like justice to the books submitted 
to him, returned them to the editor. 

At last one paper did actually take a dozen or so of 
articles from him, and gave him cash down a couple of 
guineas apiece for them, but having done this it expired 
within a fortnight after the last of Ernest’s articles had 
appeared. It certainly looked very much as if the other 
editors knew their business in declining to have anything 
to do with my unlucky godson. 

I was not sorry that he failed with periodical literature, 
for writing for reviews or newspapers is bad training for 
one who may aspire to write works of more permanent 
interest. A young writer should have more time for re- 


The Way of All Flesh 395 


flection than he can get as a contributor to the daily or 
even weekly press. Ernest himself, however, was chagrined 
at finding how unmarketable he was. ‘‘ Why,” he said to 
me, “if I was a well-bred horse, or sheep, or a pure-bred 
pigeon or lop-eared rabbit [I should be more salable. If 
I was even a cathedral in a colonial town people would 
give me something, but as it is they do not want me”; 
and now that he was well and rested he wanted to set up 
a shop again, but this, of course, I would not hear of. 

“What care I,” said he to me one day, “about being 
what they calla gentleman?” And his manner was almost 
fierce. ‘What has being a gentleman ever done for me 
except make me less able to prey and more easy to be 
preyed upon? It has changed the manner of my being 
swindled, that is all. But for your kindness to me I should 
be penniless. Thank heaven I have placed my children 
where I have.” 

I begged him to keep quiet a little longer and not talk 
about taking a shop. 

“Will being a gentleman,” he said, “bring me money at 
the last,” and will anything bring me as much peace at the 
last as money will? They say that those who have riches 
enter hardly into the kingdom of Heaven. By Jove, they 
do; they are like Struldbrugs; they live and live and live 
and are happy for many a long year after they would have 
entered into the kingdom of Heaven if they had been poor. 
I want to live long and to raise my children, if I see they 
would be happier for the raising; that is what I want, and 
it is not what I am doing now that will help me. Being a 
gentleman is a luxury which I cannot afford, therefore I 
do not want it. Let me go back to my shop again, and do 
things for people which they want done and will pay me for 
doing for them. They know what they want and what is 
good for them better than I can tell them.” 

It was hard to deny the soundness of this, and if he 
had been dependent only on the £300 a year which he was 
getting from me I should have advised him to open his 


\ 


396 The Way of All Flesh 


shop again next morning. As it was, I temporised and 
raised obstacles, and quieted him from time to time as best 
I could. 

Of course he read Mr. Darwin’s books as fast as they 
came out and adopted evolution as an article of faith. 
“It seems to me,” he said once, “‘that I am like one of 
those caterpillars which, if they have been interrupted in 
making their hammock, must begin again from the begin- 
ning. So long as I went back a long way down in the 
social scale I got on all right, and should have made money 
but for Ellen; when I try to take up the work at a higher 
stage I fail completely.” I do not know whether the 
analogy holds good or not, but I am sure Ernest’s instinct 
was right in telling him that after a heavy fall he had better 
begin life again at a very low stage, and as I have just 
said, I would have let him go back to his shop if I had not 
known what I did. 

As the time fixed upon by his aunt drew nearer I pre- 
pared him more and more for what was coming, and at 
last, on his twenty-eighth birthday, I was able to tell him 
all and to show him the letter signed by his aunt upon her 
death-bed to the effect that I was to hold the money in 
trust for him. His birthday happened that year (1863) to 
be on a Sunday, but on the following day I transferred his 
shares into his own name, and presented him with the 
account books which he had been keeping for the last year 
and a half. 

In spite of all that I had done to prepare him, it was a 
long while before I could get him actually to believe that 
the money was his own. He did not say much—no more 
did I, for I am not sure that I did not feel as much moved 
at having brought my long trusteeship to a satisfactory 
conclusion as Ernest did at finding himself owner of more 
than £70,000. When he did speak it was to jerk out a 
sentence or two of reflection at atime. “If I were render- 
ing this moment in music,” he said, “I should allow my- 
self free use of the augmented sixth.” A little later I: re- 


The Way of All Flesh 397 


member his saying with a laugh that had something of a 
family likeness to his aunt’s: “It is not the pleasure it 
causes me which I enjoy so, it is the pain it will cause to 
all my friends except yourself and Towneley.” 

I said; “You cannot tell your father and mother—it 
would drive them mad.” 

“No, no, no,” said he, “‘it would be too cruel; it would 
be like Isaac offering up Abraham and no thicket with a 
ram in it near at hand. Besides, why should I? We have 
cut each other these four years.” 


CHAPTER LXXXII 


Ir almost seemed as though our casual mention of Theo- 
bald and Christina had in some way excited them from a 
dormant to an active state. During the years that had 
elapsed since they last appeared upon the scene they had 
remained at Battersby, and had concentrated their affec- 
tion upon their other children. 

It had been a bitter pill to Theobald to lose his power 
of plaguing his first-born; if the truth were known I be- 
lieve he had felt this more acutely than any disgrace which 
might have been shed upon him by Ernest’s imprisonment. 
He had made one or two attempts to reopen negotiations 
through me, but I never said anything about them to 
Ernest, for I knew it would upset him. I wrote, however,. 
to Theobald that I had found his son inexorable, and 
recommended him for the present, at any rate, to desist 
from returning to the subject. This I thought would be 
at once what Ernest would like best and Theobald least. 

A few days, however, after Ernest had come into his 
property, I received a letter from Theobald enclosing one 
for Ernest which I could not withhold. 

The letter ran thus:— 


“To my soN ErnesT,—Although you have more than 
once rejected my overtures I appeal yet again to your 
better nature. Your mother, who has long been ailing, 


398 The Way of All Flesh 


is, I believe, near her end; she is unable to keep anything 
on her stomach, and Dr. Martin holds out but little 
hopes of her recovery. She has expressed a wish to see 
you, and says she knows you will not refuse to come to 
her, which, considering her condition, I am unwilling to 
suppose you will. 

“T remit you a Post Office order for your fare, and will 
pay your return journey. 

“If you want clothes to come in, order what you con- 
sider suitable, and desire that the bill be sent to me; I 
will pay it immediately, to an amount not exceeding 
eight or nine pounds, and if you will let me know what 
train you will come by, I will send the carriage to meet 
you. Believe me, Your affectionate father, 

T. PoNnTIFEX.” 


Of course there could be no hesitation on Ernest’s part. 
He could afford to smile now at his father’s offering to pay 
for his clothes, and his sending him a Post Office order for 
the exact price of a second-class ticket, and he was of 
course shocked at learning the state his mother was said to 
be in, and touched at her desire to see him. He telegraphed 
that he would come down at once. I saw him a little 
before he started, and was pleased to see how well his tailor 
had done by him. Towneley himself could not have been 
appointed more becomingly. His portmanteau, his rail- 
way wrapper, everything he had about him, was in keep- 
ing. I thought he had grown much better-looking than he 
had been at two or three and twenty. His year and a half 
of peace had effaced all the ill effects of his previous suffer- 
ing, and now that he had become actually rich there was 
an air of znsouciance and good humour upon his face, as of 
a man with whom everything was going perfectly right, 
which would have made a much plainer man good-looking. 
I was proud of him and delighted with him. “I am sure,” 
I said to myself, “that whatever else he may do, he will 
never marry again.” 


The Way of All Flesh 399 


The journey was a painful one. As he drew near to the 
station and caught sight of each familiar feature, so strong 
was the force of association that he felt as though his com- 
ing into his aunt’s money had been a dream, and he were 
again returning to his father’s house as he had returned to 
it from Cambridge for the vacations. Do what he would, 
the old dull weight of home-sickness began to oppress him, 
his heart beat fast as he thought of his approaching meet- 
ing with his father and mother. “And I shall have,”’ he 
said to himself, “‘to kiss Charlotte.” 

Would his father meet him at the station? Would he 
greet him as though nothing had happened, or would he be 
cold and distant? How, again, would he take the news of 
his son’s good fortune? As the train drew up to the plat- 
form, Ernest’s eye ran hurriedly over the few people who 
were in the station. His father’s well-known form was not 
among them, but on the other side of the palings which 
divided the station yard from the platform, he saw the 
pony carriage, looking, as he thought, rather shabby, and 
recognised his father’s coachman. In a few minutes more 
he was in the carriage driving towards Battersby. He 
could not help smiling as he saw the coachman give a look 
of surprise at finding him so much changed in personal ap- 
pearance. The coachman was the more surprised because 
when Ernest had last been at home he had been dressed as 
a clergyman, and now he was not only a layman, but a lay- 
man who was got up regardless of expense. The change 
was so great that it was not till Ernest actually spoke to 
him that the coachman knew him. 

“How are my father and mother?” he asked hurriedly, 
as he got into the carriage. “The Master’s well, sir,” was 
the answer, “but the Missis is very sadly.” The horse 
knew that he was going home and pulled hard at the reins. 
The weather was cold and raw—the very ideal of a Novem- 
ber day; in one part of the road the floods were out, and 
near here they had to pass through a number of horsemen 
and dogs, for the hounds had met that morning at a 


400 The Way of All Flesh 


place near Battersby. Ernest saw several people whom he 
knew, but they either, as is most likely, did not recognise 
him, or did not know of his good luck. When Battersby 
church tower drew near, and he saw the Rectory on the top 
of the hill, its chimneys just showing above the leafless 
trees with which it was surrounded, he threw himself back 
in the carriage and covered his face with his hands. 

It came to an end, as even the worst quarters of an hour 
do, and in a few minutes more he was on the steps in front 
of his father’s house. His father, hearing the carriage 
arrive, came a little way down the steps to meet him. 
Like the coachman he saw at a glance that Ernest was ap- 
pointed as though money were abundant with him, and 
that he was looking robust and full of health and vigour. 

This was not what he had bargained for. He wanted 
Ernest to return, but he was to return as any respectable, 
well-regulated prodigal ought to return—abject, broken- 
hearted, asking forgiveness from the tenderest and most 
long-suffering father in the whole world. If he should 
have shoes and stockings and whole clothes at all, it should 
be only because absolute rags and tatters had been gra- 
ciously dispensed with, whereas here he was swaggering in 
a grey ulster and a blue and white necktie, and looking 
better than Theobald had ever seen him in his life. It was 
unprincipled. Was it for this that he had been generous 
enough to offer to provide Ernest with decent clothes in 
which to come and visit his mother’s death-bed? Could 
any advantage be meaner than the one which Ernest had 
taken? Well, he would not go a penny beyond the eight 
er nine pounds which he had promised. It was fortunate 
he had given a limit. Why, he, Theobald, had never been 
able to afford such a portmanteau in his life. He was still 
using an old one which his father had turned over to him 
when he went up to Cambridge. Besides, he had said 
clothes, not a portmanteau. . 

Ernest saw what was passing through his father’s mind 
and felt that he ought to have prepared him in some way 


The Way of All Flesh 401 


for what he now saw; but he had sent his telegram so im- 
mediately on receiving his father’s letter, and had followed 
it so promptly that it would not have been easy to do so 
even if he had thought of it. He put out his hand and 
said laughingly, “Oh, it’s all paid for—I am afraid you do 
not know that Mr. Overton has handed over to me Aunt 
Alethea’s money.” 

Theobald flushed scarlet. “But why,” he said, and 
these were the first words that actually crossed his lips— 
“if the money was not his to keep, did he not hand it over 
to my brother John and me?” He stammered a good deal 
and looked sheepish, but he got the words out. 

“Because, my dear father,” said Ernest still laughing, 
“my aunt left it to him in trust for me, not in trust either 
for you or for my Uncle John—and it has accumulated till 
it is now over £70,000. But tell me how is my mother?” 

“No, Ernest,’’ said Theobald excitedly, “the matter 
cannot rest here; | must know that this is all open and 
above board.” 

This had the true Theobald ring and instantly brought 
the whole train of ideas which in Ernest’s mind were con- 
nected with his father. The surroundings were the old 
familiar ones, but the surrounded were changed almost be- 
yond power of recognition. He turned sharply on Theo- 
bald in a moment. I will not repeat the words he used, 
for they came out before he had time to consider them 
and they might strike some of my readers as disrespectful; 
there were not many of them, but they were effectual. 
Theobald said nothing, but turned almost of an ashen col- 
our; he never again spoke to his son in such a way as to 
make it necessary for him to repeat what he had said on 
this occasion. Ernest quickly recovered his temper and 
again asked after his mother. Theobald was glad enough 
to take this opening now, and replied at once in the tone 
he would have assumed towards one he most particularly 
desired to conciliate, that she was getting rapidly worse 
in spite of all he had been able to do for her, and concluded 


402 The Way of All Flesh 


by saying she had been the comfort and mainstay of his 
life for more than thirty years, but that he could not wish 
it prolonged. 

The pair then went upstairs to Christina’s room, the 
one in which Ernest had been born. His father went before 
him and prepared her for her son’s approach. The poor 
woman raised herself in bed as he came towards her, and 
weeping as she flung her arms around him, cried: “Oh, I 
knew he would come, I knew, I knew he could come.” 

Ernest broke down and wept as he had not done for years. 

“Oh, my boy, my boy,” she said as soon as she could 
recover her voice. “Have you never really been near us 
for all these years? Ah, you do not know how we have 
loved you and mourned over you, papa just as much as I 
have. You know he shows his feelings less, but I can never 
tell you how very, very deeply he has felt for you. Some- 
times at night I have thought I have heard footsteps in the 
garden, and have got quietly out of bed lest I should wake 
him, and gone to the window to look out, but there has 
been only dark or the greyness of the morning, and I have 
gone crying back to bed again. Still I think you have been 
near us though you were too proud to let us know—and 
now at last I have you in my arms once more, my dearest, 
dearest boy.” 

How cruel, how infamously unfeeling Ernest thought he 
had been. 

“Mother,” he said, “forgive me—the fault was mine; I 
ought not to have been so hard; I was wrong, very wrong”’ 
the poor blubbering fellow meant what he said, and his 
heart yearned to his mother as he had never thought that it 
could yearn again. “But have you never,” she continued 
‘come although it was in the dark and we did not know it— 
oh, let me think that you have not been so cruel as we have 
thought you. Tell me that you came if only to comfort 
me and make me happier.” 

Ernest was ready. “I had no money to come with, 
mother, till just lately.” 


The Way of All Flesh 403 


This was an excuse Christina could understand and make 
allowance for: “Oh, then you would have come, and I 
will take the will for the deed—and now that I have you 
safe again, say that you will never, never leave me—not 
till—not till—oh, my boy, have they told you I am dying?” 
She wept bitterly and buried her head in her pillow. 


CHAPTER LXXXIIl 


Jory and Charlotte were in the room. Joey was now or- 
dained, and was curate to Theobald. He and Ernest had 
never been sympathetic, and Ernest saw at a glance that 
there was no chance of a rapprochement between them. 
He was a little startled at seeing Joey dressed as a clergy- 
man, and looking so like what he had looked himself a 
few years earlier, for there was a good deal of family like- 
ness between the pair; but Joey’s face was cold and was 
illumined with no spark of Bohemianism; he was a clergy- 
man and was going to do as other clergymen did, neither 
better nor worse. He greeted Ernest rather de haut en 
bas, that is to say he began by trying to do so, but the 
affair tailed off unsatisfactorily. 

His sister presented her cheek to him to be kissed. How 
he hated it; he had been dreading it for the last three hours. 
She, too, was distant and reproachful in her manner, as 
such a superior person was sure to be. She had a griev- 
ance against him inasmuch as she was still unmarried. 
She laid the blame of this at Ernest’s door; it was his 
misconduct, she maintained in secret, which had prevented 
young men from making offers to her, and she ran him up 
a heavy bill for consequential damages. She and Joey 
had from the first developed an instinct for hunting with 
the hounds and now these two had fairly identified them- 
selves with the older generation—that is to say as against 
Ernest. On this head there was an offensive and defen- 
sive alliance between them, but between themselves there 
was subdued but internecine warfare. 


404 The Way of All Flesh 


This at least was what Ernest gathered, partly from his 
recollections of the parties concerned, and partly from his 
observation of their little ways during the first half-hour 
after his arrival, while they were all together in his mother’s 
bedroom—for as yet of course they did not know that he 
had money. He could see that they eyed him from time 
to time with a surprise not unmixed with indignation, and 
knew very well what they were thinking. 

Christina saw the change which had come over him—how 
much firmer and more vigorous both in mind and body he 
seemed than when she had last seen him. She saw too how 
well he was dressed, and, like the others, in spite of the 
return of all her affection for her first-born, was a little 
alarmed about Theobald’s pocket, which she supposed 
would have to be mulcted for all this magnificence. Per- 
ceiving this, Ernest relieved her mind and told her all 
about his aunt’s bequest, and how I had husbanded it, 
in the presence of his brother and sister—who, however, 
pretended not to notice, or at any rate to notice as a matter 
in which they could hardly be expected to take an interest. 

His mother kicked a little at first against the money’s 
having gone to him as she said “over his papa’s head.” 
“Why, my dear,” she said in a deprecating tone, “‘this is 
more than ever your papa has had”’; but Ernest calmed her 
by suggesting that if Miss Pontifex had known how large 
the sum would become she would have left the greater 
part of it to Theobald. This compromise was accepted by 
Christina who forthwith, ill as she was, entered with ar- 
dour into the new position, and taking it as a fresh point 
of departure, began spending Ernest’s money for him. 

I may say in passing that Christina was right in saying 
that Theobald had never had so much money as his son 
was now possessed of. In the first place he had not had 
a fourteen years’ minority with no outgoings to prevent 
the accumulation of the money, and in the second he, like 
myself and almost everyone else, had suffered somewhat 
in the 1846 times—not enough to cripple him or even seri- 


The Way of All Flesh 405 


ously to hurt him, but enough to give him a scare and make 
him stick to debentures for the rest of his life. It was the 
fact of his son’s being the richer man of the two, and of his 
being rich so young, which rankled with Theobald even 
more than the fact of his having money at all. If he had 
had to wait till he was sixty or sixty-five, and become 
broken down from long failure in the meantime, why then 
perhaps he might have been allowed to have whatever sum 
should suffice to keep him out of the workhouse and pay 
his deathbed expenses; but that he should come into 
£70,000 at eight and twenty, and have no wife and only 
two children—it was intolerable. Christina was too ill 
and in too great a hurry to spend the money to care much 
about such details as the foregoing, and she was naturally 
much more good-natured than Theobald. 

“This piece of good fortune”—she saw it at a glance— 
“‘quite wiped out the disgrace of his having been impris- 
oned. There should be no more nonsense about that. 
The whole thing was a mistake, an unfortunate mistake, 
true, but the less said about it now the better. Of course 
Ernest would come back and live at Battersby until he 
was married, and he would pay his father handsomely for 
board and lodging. In fact it would be only right that 
Theobald should make a profit, nor would Ernest himself 
wish it to be other than a handsome one; this was far the 
best and simplest arrangement; and he could take his 
sister out more than Theobald or Joey cared to do, and. 
would also doubtless entertain very handsomely at Bat- 
tersby. 

“Of course he would buy Joey a living, and make large 
presents yearly to his sister—was there anything else? 
Oh! yes—he would become a county magnate now; a man 
with nearly £4,000 a year should certainly become a 
county magnate. He might even go into Parliament. 
He had very fair abilities, nothing indeed approaching 
such genius as Dr. Skinner’s nor even as Theobald’s, still 
he was not deficient and if he got into Parliament—so 


406 The Way of All Flesh 


young too—there was nothing to hinder his being Prime 
Minister before he died, and if so, of course, he would be- 
come a peer. Oh! why did he not set about it all at once, 
so that she might live to hear people call her son ‘my 
lord’—Lord Battersby she thought would do very nicely, 
and if she was well enough to sit he must certainly have her 
portrait painted at full length for one end of his large 
dining-hall. It should be exhibited at the Royal Academy: 
‘Portrait of Lord Battersby’s mother,’ she said to herself, 
and her heart fluttered with all its wonted vivacity. If 
she could not sit, happily, she had been photographed not 
so very long ago, and the portrait had been as successful 
as any photograph could be of a face which depended so 
entirely upon its expression as her own. Perhaps the 
painter could take the portrait sufficiently from this. 
It was better after all that Ernest had given up the Church 
—how far more wisely God arranges matters for us than 
ever we can do for ourselves! She saw it all now—it 
was Joey who would become Archbishop of Canterbury 
and Ernest would remain a layman and become Prime 
Minister” . .. and so on till her daughter told her it 
was time to take her medicine. 

I suppose this reverie, which is a mere fragment of what 
actually ran through Christina’s brain, occupied about a 
minute and a half, but it, or the presence of her son, seemed 
to revive her spirits wonderfully. Ill, dying indeed, and 
suffering as she was, she brightened up so as to laugh once 
or twice quite merrily during the course of the afternoon. 
Next day Dr. Martin said she was so much better that he 
almost began to have hopes of her recovery again. Theo- 
bald, whenever this was touched upon as possible, would 
shake his head and say: ‘‘We can’t wish it prolonged,” 
and then Charlotte caught Ernest unawares and said: 
“You know, dear Ernest, that these ups and downs of talk 
are terribly agitating to papa; he could stand whatever 
comes, but it is quite too wearing to him to think half-a- 
dozen different things backwards and forwards, up and 


The Way of All Flesh 407 


down in the same twenty-four hours, and it would be kinder 
of you not to do it—I mean not to say anything to him 
even though Dr. Martin does hold out hopes.” 

Charlotte had meant to imply that it was Ernest who 
was at the bottom of all the inconvenience felt by Theo- 
bald, herself, Joey and everyone else, and she had actu- 
ally got words out which should convey this; true, she had 
not dared to stick to them and had turned them off, but 
she had made them hers at any rate for one brief moment, 
and this was better than nothing. Ernest noticed through- 
out his mother’s illness, that Charlotte found immediate 
occasion to make herself disagreeable to him whenever 
either the doctor or nurse pronounced her mother to be a 
little better. When she wrote to Crampsford to desire 
the prayers of the congregation (she was sure her mother 
would wish it, and that the Crampsford people would be 
pleased at her remembrance of them), she was sending 
another letter on some quite different subject at the same 
time, and put the two letters into the wrong envelopes. 
Ernest was asked to take these letters to the village post- 
office, and imprudently did so; when the error came to be 
discovered Christina happened to have rallied a little. 
Charlotte flew at Ernest immediately, and laid all the 
blame of the blunder upon his shoulders. 

Except that Joey and Charlotte were more fully de- 
veloped, the house and its inmates, organic and inorganic, 
were little changed since Ernest had last seen them. The 
furniture and the ornaments on the chimney-piece were just 
as they had been ever since he could remember anything 
at all. In the drawing-room, on either side of the fireplace 
there hung the Carlo Dolci and the Sassoferrato as in old 
times; there was the water colour of a scene on the Lago 
Maggiore, copied by Charlotte from an original lent her 
by her drawing master, and finished under his direction. 
This was the picture of which one of the servants had 
said that it must be good, for Mr. Pontifex had given ten 
shillings for the frame. The paper on the walls was un- 


408 The Way of All Flesh 


changed; the roses were still waiting for the bees; and the 
whole family still prayed night and morning to be made 
“truly honest and conscientious.” 

One picture only was removed—a photograph of him- 
self which had hung under one of his father and between 
those of his brother and sister. Ernest noticed this at 
prayer time, while his father was reading about Noah’s 
ark and how they daubed it with slime, which, as it hap- 
pened, had been Ernest’s favourite text when he was a 
boy. Next morning, however, the photograph had found 
its way back again, a little dusty and with a bit of the 
gilding chipped off from one corner of the frame, but there 
sure enough it was. I suppose they put it back when they 
found how rich he had become. 

In the dining-room the ravens were still trying to feed 
Elijah over the fireplace; what a crowd of reminiscences 
did not this picture bring back! Looking out of the win- 
dow, there were the flower beds in the front garden ex- 
actly as they had been, and Ernest found himself looking 
hard against the blue door at the bottom of the garden to 
see if there was rain falling, as he had been used to look 
when he was a child doing lessons with his father. 

After their early dinner, when Joey and Ernest and their 
father were left alone, Theobald rose and stood in the 
middle of the hearthrug under the Elijah picture, and be- 
gan to whistle in his old absent way. He had two tunes 
only—one was “In my Cottage near a Wood,” and the 
other was the Easter Hymn; he had been trying to whistle 
them all his life, but had never succeeded; he whistled 
them as a clever bullfinch might whistle them—he had got 
them, but he had not got them right; he would be a semi- 
tone out in every third note as though reverting to some 
remote musical progenitor, who had known none but the 
Lydian or the Phrygian mode, or whatever would enable 
him to go most wrong while still keeping the tune near 
enough to be recognised. Theobald stood before the mid- 
dle of the fire and whistled his two tunes softly in his own 


The Way of All Flesh 409 


old way till Ernest left the room; the unchangedness of 
the external and changedness of the internal he felt were 
likely to throw him completely off his balance. 

He strolled out of doors into the sodden spinney behind 
the house, and solaced himself with a pipe. Ere long he 
found himself at the door of the cottage of his father’s 
coachman, who had married an old lady’s maid of his 
mother’s, to whom Ernest had been always much attached 
as she also to him, for she had known him ever since he had 
been five or six years old. Her name was Susan. He sat 
down in the rocking-chair before her fire, and Susan went 
on ironing at the table in front of the window, and a smell 
of hot flannel pervaded the kitchen. 

Susan had been retained too securely by Christina to 
be likely to side with Ernest allin a moment. He knew this 
very well, and did not call on her for the sake of support, 
moral or otherwise. He had called because he liked her, 
and also because he knew that he should gather much in 
a chat with her that he should not be able to arrive at in 
any other way. 

“Oh, Master Ernest,” said Susan, “why did you not 
come back when your poor papa and mamma wanted you? 
I’m sure your ma has said to me a hundred times over if 
she has said it once that all should be exactly as it had been 
before.” 

Ernest smiled to himself. It was no use explaining to 
Susan why he smiled, so he said nothing. 

“For the first day or two I thought she never would get 
over it; she said it was a judgement upon her, and went on 
about things as she had said and done many years ago, be- 
fore your pa knew her, and I don’t know what she didn’t 
say or wouldn’t have said only I stopped her; she seemed 
out of her mind like, and said that none of the neighbours 
would ever speak to her again, but the next day Mrs. 
Bushby (her that was Miss Cowey, you know) called, and 
your ma always was so fond of her, and it seemed to do her 
a power 0’ good, for the next day she went through all her 


410 The Way of All Flesh 


dresses, and we settled how she should have them altered; 
and then all the neighbours called for miles and miles 
round, and your ma came in here, and said she had been 
going through the waters of misery, and the Lord had 
turned them to a well. 

““*Qh, yes, Susan,’ said she, ‘be sure it is so. Whom 
the Lord loveth he chasteneth, Susan,’ and here she began 
to cry again. ‘As for him,’ she went on, ‘he has made his 
bed, and he must lie on it; when he comes out of prison his 
pa will know what is best to be done, and Master Ernest 
may be thankful that he has a pa so good and so long- 
suffering.’ 

“Then when you would not see them, that was a cruel 
blow to yourma. Your pa did not say anything; you know 
your pa never does say very much unless he’s downright 
waxy for the time; but your ma took on dreadful for a 
few days, and I never saw the master look so black; but 
bless you, it all went off in a few days, and I don’t know 
that there’s been much difference in either of them since 
then, not till your ma was took ill.”’ 

On the night of his arrival he had behaved well at family 
prayers, as also on the following morning; his father read 
about David’s dying injunction to Solomon in the matter 
of Shimei, but he did not mind it. In the course of the 
day, however, his corns had been trodden on so many 
times that he was in a misbehaving humour, on this the 
second night after his arrival. He knelt next Charlotte 
and said the responses perfunctorily, not so perfunctorily 
that she should know for certain that he was doing it 
maliciously, but so perfunctorily as to make her un- 
certain whether he might be malicious or not, and when 
he had to pray to be made truly honest and conscientious 
he emphasised the “truly.” I do not know whether Char- 
lotte noticed anything, but she knelt at some distance 
from him during the rest of his stay. He assures me that 
this was the only spiteful thing he did during the whole 
time he was at Battersby. 


The Way of All Flesh 411 


When he went up to his bedroom, in which, to do them 
justice, they had given him a frre, he noticed what indeed 
he had noticed as soon as he was shown into it on his ar- 
rival, that there was an illuminated card framed and glazed 
over his bed with the words, “‘Be the day weary or be the 
day long, at last it ringeth to evensong.”” He wondered to 
himself how such people could leave such a card in a room 
in which their visitors would have to spend the last hours 
of their evening, but he let it alone. ‘“‘There’s not enough 
difference between ‘weary’ and ‘long’ to warrant an ‘or,’ ” 
he said, “‘but I suppose it is all right.”” I believe Christina 
had bought the card at a bazaar in aid of the restoration 
of a neighbouring church, and having been bought it had 
got to be used—besides, the sentiment was so touching 
and the illumination was really lovely. Anyhow, no irony 
could be more complete than leaving it in my hero’s bed- 
room, though assuredly no irony had been intended. 

On the third day after Ernest’s arrival Christina re- 
lapsed again. For the last two days she had been in no 
pain and had slept a good deal; her son’s presence still 
seemed to cheer her, and she often said how thankful she 
was to be surrounded on her death-bed by a family so 
happy, so God-fearing, so united, but now she began to 
wander, and, being more sensible of the approach of death, 
seemed also more alarmed at the thoughts of the Day of 
Judgement. 

She ventured more than once or twice to return to the 
subject of her sins, and implored Theobald to make quite 
sure that they were forgiven her. She hinted that she 
considered his professional reputation was at stake; it would 
never do for his own wife to fail in securing at any rate a 
pass. This was touching Theobald on a tender spot; 
he winced and rejoined with an impatient toss of the head, 
“But Christina, they are forgiven you’’; and then he en- 
trenched himself in a firm but dignified manner ,behind 
the Lord’s prayer. When he rose he left the room, but 
called Ernest out to say that he could not wish it prolonged. 


412 The Way of All Flesh 


Joey was no more use in quieting his mother’s anxiety 
than Theobald had been—indeed he was only Theobald 
and water; at last Ernest, who had not liked interfering, 
took the matter in hand, and, sitting beside her, let her 
pour out her grief to him without let or hindrance. 

She said she knew she had not given up all for Christ’s 
sake; it was this that weighed upon her. She had given 
up much, and had always tried to give up more year by 
year, still she knew very well that she had not been so 
spiritually minded as she ought to have been. If she had, 
she should probably have been favoured with some direct 
vision or communication; whereas, though God had vouch- 
safed such direct and visible angelic visits to one of her 
dear children, yet she had had none such herself—nor 
even had Theobald. 

She was talking rather to herself than to Ernest as she 
said these words, but they made him open his ears. He 
wanted to know whether the angel had appeared to Joey 
or to Charlotte. He asked his mother, but she seemed sur- 
prised, as though she expected him to know all about it; 
then, as if.she remembered, she checked herself and said, 
“Ah! yes—you know nothing of all this, and perhaps it is 
as well.”” Ernest could not of course press the subject, so 
he never found out which of his near relations it. was who 
had had direct communication with an immortal. The 
others never said anything to him about it, though whether 
this was because they were ashamed, or because they feared 
he would not believe the story and thus increase his own 
damnation, he could not determine. 

Ernest had often thought about this since. He tried to 
get the facts out of Susan, who he was sure would know, 
but Charlotte had been beforehand with him. “No, 
Master Ernest,” said Susan, when he began to question 
her, “‘your ma has sent a message to me by Miss Charlotte 
as I am not to say nothing at all about it, and I never will.” 
Of course no further questioning was possible. It had more 
than once occurred to Ernest that Charlotte did not in 


The Way of All Flesh 413 


reality believe more than he did himself, and this incident 
went far to strengthen his surmises, but he wavered when 
he remembered how she had misdirected the letter asking 
for the prayers of the congregation. “I suppose,’’ he said 
to himself gloomily, “‘she does believe in it after all.” 

Then Christina returned to the subject of her own want 
of spiritual-mindedness, she even harped upon the old 
grievance of her having eaten black puddings—true, she 
had given them up years ago, but for how many years 
had she not persevered in eating them after she had had 
misgivings about their having been forbidden! Then there 
was something that weighed on her mind that had taken 
place before her marriage, and she should like 

Ernest interrupted her: ‘“‘My dear mother,” he said, 
*‘you are ill and your mind is unstrung; others can now 
judge better about you than you can; [ assure you that to 
me you seem to have been the most devotedly unselfish 
wife and mother that ever lived. Even if you have not 
literally given up all for Christ’s sake, you have done so 
practically as far as it was in your power, and more than 
this is not required of anyone. I believe you will not only 
be a saint, but a very distinguished one.” 

At these words Christina brightened. ‘‘You give me 
hope, you give me hope,” she cried, and dried her eyes. 
She made him assure her over and over again that this was 
his solemn conviction; she did not care about being a dis- 
tinguished saint now; she would be quite content to be 
among the meanest who actually got into heaven, provided 
she could make sure of escaping that awful Hell. The fear 
of this evidently was omnipresent with her, and in spite 
of all Ernest could say he did not quite dispel it. She 
was rather ungrateful, I must confess, for after more than 
an hour’s consolation from Ernes@She prayed for him that 
he might have every blessing in this world, inasmuch as 
she always feared that he was the only one of her children 
whom she should never meet in heaven; but she was then 
wandering, and was hardly aware of his presence; her mind 





414 The Way of All Flesh 


in fact was reverting to states in which it had been before 
her illness. 

On Sunday Ernest went to church as a matter of course, 
and noted that the ever receding tide of Evangelicalism 
had ebbed many a stage lower, even during the few years 
of his absence. His father used to walk to the church 
through the Rectory garden, and across a small interven- 
ing field. He had been used to walk in a tall hat, his mas- 
ter’s gown, and wearing a pair of Geneva bands. Ernest 
noticed that the bands were worn no longer, and lo! 
greater marvel still, Theobald did not preach in his Mas- 
ter’s gown, but in a surplice. The whole character of the 
service was changed; you could not say it was high even 
now, for high-church Theobald could never under any 
circumstances become, but the old easy-going slovenli- 
ness, if I may say so, was gone for ever. The orchestral 
accompaniments to the hymns had disappeared while 
my hero was yet a boy, but there had been no chanting for 
some years after the harmonium had been introduced. 
While Ernest was at Cambridge, Charlotte and Christina 
had prevailed on Theobald to allow the canticles to be 
sung; and sung they were to old-fashioned double chants 
by Lord Mornington and Dr. Dupuis and others. Theo- 
bald did not like it, but he did it, or allowed it to be 
done. 

Then Christina said: ‘‘My dear, do you know, I really 
think” (Christina always “really” thought) “that the 
people like the chanting very much, and that it will be 
a means of bringing many to church who have stayed away 
hitherto. I was talking about it to Mrs. Goodhew and to 
old Miss Wright only yesterday, and they quite agreed 
with me, but they al’, ud that we ought to chant the 
‘Glory be to the Fathc®at the end of each of the psalms 
instead of saying it.” 

Theobald looked black—he felt the waters of chanting 
rising higher and higher upon him inch by inch; but he 
felt also, he knew not why, that he had better yield than 


The Way of All Flesh 415 


fight. So he ordered the “Glory be to the Father” to be 
chanted in future, but he did not like it. 

“Really, mamma dear,” said Charlotte, when the battle 
was won, “you should not call it the ‘Glory be to the 
Father’—you should say ‘Gloria.’” 

“Of course, my dear,’”’ said Christina, and she said 
“Gloria” for ever after. Then she thought what a wonder- 
fully clever girl Charlotte was, and how she ought to marry 
no one lower than a bishop. By-and-by when Theobald 
went away for an unusually long holiday one summer, he 
could find no one but a rather high-church clergyman to 
take his duty. This gentleman was a man of weight in 
the neighbourhood, having considerable private means, 
but without preferment. In the summer he would often 
help his brother clergymen, and it was through his being 
willing to take the duty at Battersby for a few Sundays 
that Theobald had been able to get away for so long. On 
his return, however, he found that the whole psalms were 
being chanted as well as the Glorias. The influential 
clergyman, Christina, and Charlotte took the bull by the 
horns as soon as [Theobald returned, and laughed it all 
off; and the clergyman laughed and bounced, and Chris- 
tina laughed and coaxed, and Charlotte uttered unexcep- 
tionable sentiments, and the thing was done now, and could 
not be undone, and it was no use grieving over spilt milk; 
so henceforth the psalms were to be chanted, but Theobald 
grisled over it in his heart, and he did not like it. 

During this same absence what had Mrs. Goodhew and 
old Miss Wright taken to doing but turning towards the 
east while repeating the Belief? Theobald disliked this 
even worse than chanting. When he said something about 
it in a timid way at dinner aft —_ervice, Charlotte said, 
“Really, papa dear, you must tke to calling it the ‘Creed’ 
and not the ‘Belief’”; and Theobald winced impatiently 
and snorted meek defiance, but the spirit of her aunts 
Jane and Eliza was strong in Charlotte, and the thing was 
too small to fight about, and he turned it off with a laugh. 


416 The Way of All Flesh 


“As for Charlotte,” thought Christina, “I believe she 
knows everything.” So Mrs. Goodhew and old Miss Wright 
continued to turn to the east during the time the Creed 
was said, and by-and-by others followed their example, 
and ere long the few who had stood out yielded and turned 
eastward too; and then Theobald made as though he had 
thought it all very right and proper from the first, but like 
it he did not. By-and-by Charlotte tried to make him say 
“ Alleluia” instead of “Hallelujah,” but this was going too 
far, and Theobald turned, and she got frightened and ran 
away. 

And they changed the double chants for single ones, and 
altered them psalm by psalm, and in the middle of psalms, 
just where a cursory reader would see no reason why they 
should do so, they changed from major to minor and from 
minor back to major; and then they got “Hymns Ancient 
and Modern,” and, as I have said, they robbed him of 
his beloved bands, and they made him preach in a surplice, 
and he must have celebration of the Holy Communion 
once a month instead of only five times in the year as 
heretofore, and he struggled in vain against the unseen 
influence which he felt to be working in season and out of 
season against all that he had been accustomed to consider 
most distinctive of his party. Where it was, or what it 
was, he knew not, nor exactly what it would do next, but 
he knew exceedingly well that go where he would it was 
undermining him; that it was too persistent for him; that 
Christina and Charlotte liked it a great deal better than 
he did, and that it could end in nothing but Rome. Easter 
decorations indeed! Christmas decorations—in reason— 
were proper enough, but Easter decorations! well, it might 
last his time. 

This was the course things had taken in the Church of 
England during the last forty years. The set has been 
steadily in one direction. A few men who knew what they 
wanted made catspaws of the Christinas and the Char- 
lottes. and the Christinas and the Charlottes made cats- 


The Way of All Flesh 417 


paws of the Mrs. Goodhews and the old Miss Wrights, 
and the Mrs. Goodhews and old Miss Wrights told 
the Mr. Goodhews and young Miss Wrights what 
they should do, and when the Mr. Goodhews and the 
young Miss Wrights did it the little Goodhews and the 
rest of the spiritual flock did as they did, and the Theo- 
balds went for nothing; step by step, day by day, year 
by year, parish by parish, diocese by diocese this was how 
it was done. And yet the Church of England looks 
with no friendly eyes upon the theory of Evolution or 
descent with Modification. 

My hero thought these things over, and remembered 
many a ruse on the part of Christina and Charlotte, and 
many a detail of the struggle which I cannot further in- 
terrupt my story to refer to, and he remembered his father’s 
favourite retort that it could only end in Rome. When he 
was a boy he had firmly believed this, but he smiled now 
as he thought of another alternative clear enough to him- 
self, but so horrible that it had not even occurred to Theo- 
bald,—I mean the toppling over of the whole system. At 
that time he welcomed the hope that the absurdities and 
unrealities of the Church would end in her downfall. Since 
then he has come to think very differently, not as believing 
in the cow jumping over the moon more than he used to, 
or more, probably, than nine-tenths of the clergy them- 
selves—who know as well as he does that their outward 
and visible symbols are out of date—but because he knows 
the bafHing complexity of the problem when it comes 
to deciding what is actually to be done. Also, now 
that he has seen them more closely, he knows better 
the nature of those wolves in sheep’s clothing, who are 
thirsting for the blood of their victim, and exulting so 
clamorously over its anticipated early fall into their 
clutches. The spirit behind the Church is true, though her 
letter—true once—is now true no longer. The spirit be- 
hind the High Priests of Science is as lying as its letter. 
The Theobalds, who do what they do because it seems to 


418 The Way of All Flesh 


be the correct thing, but who in their hearts neither like it 
nor believe in it, are in reality the least dangerous of all 
classes to the peace and liberties of mankind. The man to 
fear is he who goes at things with the cocksureness of push- 
ing vulgarity and self-conceit. These are not vices which 
can be justly laid to the charge of the English clergy. 

Many of the farmers came up to Ernest when service 
was over, and shook hands with him. He found every one 
knew of his having come into a fortune. The fact was that 
Theobald had immediately told two or three of the greatest 
gossips in the village, and the story was not long in spread- 
ing. ‘“‘It simplified matters,” he had said to himself, “‘a 
good deal.”” Ernest was civil to Mrs. Goodhew for her hus- 
band’s sake, but he gave Miss Wright the cut direct, for 
he knew that she was only Charlotte in disguise. 

A week passed slowly away. Two or three times the 
family took the sacrament together round Christina’s 
deathbed. Theobald’s impatience became more and more 
transparent daily, but fortunately Christina (who even if 
she had been well would have been ready to shut her eyes to 
it) became weaker and less coherent in mind also, so that 
she hardly, if at all, perceived it. After Ernest had been in 
the house about a week his mother fell into a comatose state 
which lasted a couple of days, and in the end went away 
so peacefully that it was like the blending of sea and sky 
in mid-ocean upon a soft hazy day when none can say 
where the earth ends and the heavens begin. Indeed she 
died to the realities of life with less pain than she had 
waked from many of its illusions. 

“She has been the comfort and mainstay of my life for 
more than thirty years,” said Theobald as soon as all was 
over, “but one could not wish it prolonged,” and he buried 
his face in his handkerchief to conceal his want of 
emotion. 

Ernest came back to town the day after his mother’s 
death, and returned to the funeral accompanied by myself. 
He wanted me to see his father in order to prevent any 


The Way of All Flesh 419 


possible misapprehension about Miss Pontifex’s intentions, 
and I was such an old friend of the family that my presence 
at Christina’s funeral would surprise no one. With all her 
faults I had always rather liked Christina. She would have 
chopped Ernest or anyone else into little pieces of mince- 
meat to gratify the slightest wish of her husband, but she 
would not have chopped him up for anyone else, and so 
long as he did not cross her she was very fond of him. By 
nature she was of an even temper, more willing to be 
pleased than ruffled, very ready to do a good-natured ac- 
tion, provided it did not cost her much exertion, nor in- 
volve expense to Theobald. Her own little purse did not 
matter; anyone might have as much of that as he or she 
could get after she had reserved what was absolutely neces- 
sary for her dress. I could not hear of her end as Ernest 
described it to me without feeling very compassionate to- 
wards her, indeed her own son could hardly have felt more 
so; I at once, therefore, consented to go down to the funeral; 
perhaps I was also influenced by a desire to see Charlotte 
and Joey, in whom I felt interested on hearing what my 
godson had told me. 

I found Theobald looking remarkably well. Everyone 
said he was bearing it so beautifully. He did indeed once 
or twice shake his head and say that his wife had been the 
comfort and mainstay of his life for over thirty years, but 
there the matter ended. I stayed over the next day which 
was Sunday, and took my departure on the following morn- 
ing after having told Theobald all that his son wished me to 
tell him. Theobald asked me to help with Christina’s 
epitaph. 

“T would say,” said he, “as little as possible; eulogies 
of the departed are in most cases both unnecessary and 
untrue. Christina’s epitaph shall contain nothing which 
shall be either the one or the other. I should give her 
name, the dates of her birth and death, and of course say 
she was my wife, and then I think I should wind up with 
a simple text—her favourite one for example, none indeed 


420 The Way of All Flesh 


could be more appropriate, ‘Blessed are the pure in heart 
for they shall see God.’ ”’: 

I said I thought this would be very nice, and it was 
settled. So Ernest was sent to give the order to Mr. 
Prosser, the stonemason in the nearest town, who said it 
came from “the Beetitudes.” 


CHAPTER LXXXIV 


ON our way to town Ernest broached his plans for spend- 
ing the next year or two. I wanted him to try and get 
more into society again, but he brushed this aside at once 
as the very last thing he had a fancy for. For society in- 
deed of all sorts, except of course that of a few intimate 
friends, he had an unconquerable aversion. “I always did 
hate those people,” he said, “‘and they always have hated 
and always will hate me. [ am an Ishmael by instinct as 
much as by accident of circumstances, but if I keep out of 
society I shall be less vulnerable than Ishmaels generally 
are. The moment a man goes into society, he becomes 
vulnerable all round.” 

I was very sorry to hear him talk in this way; for what- 
ever strength a man may have he should surely be able to 
make more of it if he act in concert than alone. I said 
this. 

“1 don’t care,”” he answered, “‘whether I make the most 
of my strength or not; I don’t know whether I have any 
strength, but if I have I dare say it will find some way of 
exerting itself. I will live as I like living, not as other 
people would like me to live; thanks to my aunt and you, 
I can afford the luxury of a quiet, unobtrusive life of self- 
indulgence,” said he laughing, ‘‘and I mean to have it. 
You know I like writing,” he added after a pause of some 
minutes; “I have been a scribbler for years. If I am to 
come to the fore at all it must be by writing.” __ 

I had already long since come to that conclusion myself. 

| “Well,” he continued, “there are a lot of things that 


The Way of All Flesh 421 


want saying which no one dares to say, a lot of shams 
which want attacking, and yet no one attacks them. It 
seems to me that I can say things which not another man 
in England except myself will venture to say, and yet 
which are crying to be said.” 

I said: “But who will listen? If you say things which 
nobody else would dare to say, is not this much the same 
as saying what everyone except yourself knows to be bet- 
ter left unsaid just now?” 

“Perhaps,” said he, “but I don’t know it; I am bursting 
with these things, and it is my fate to say them.” 

I knew there would be no stopping him, so I gave in 
and asked what question he felt a special desire to burn 
his fingers with in the first instance. 

“Marriage,” he rejoined promptly, “and the power of 
disposing of his property after a man is dead. The ques- 
tion of Christianity is virtually settled, or if not settled 
there is no lack of those engaged in settling it. The ques- 
tion of the day now is marriage and the family system.” 

“That,” said I drily, “is a hornet’s nest indeed.” 

“Yes,” said he no less drily, “but hornet’s nests are 
exactly what I happen to like. Before, however, [ begin 
to stir up this particular one I propose to travel for a few 
years, with the especial object of finding out what nations 
now existing are the best, comeliest and most lovable, and 
also what nations have been so in times past. I want to 
find out how these people live, and have lived, and what 
their customs are. 

“T have very vague notions upon the subject as yet, but 
the general impression I have formed is that, putting our- 
selves on one side, the most vigorous and amiable of known 
nations are the modern Italians, the old Greeks and Ro- 
mans, and the South Sea Islanders. I believe that these 
nice peoples have not as a general rule been purists, but 
I want to see those of them who can yet be seen; they are 
the practical authorities on the question—What is best 
for man? and I should like to see them and find out what 


422 The Way of All Flesh 


they do. Let us settle the fact first and fight about the 
moral tendencies afterwards.” 

“In fact,” said I laughingly, “you mean to have high 
old times.” 

“Neither higher nor lower,” was the answer, “‘than those 
people whom I can find to have been the best in all ages. 
But let us change the subject.”’ He put his hand into his 
pocket and brought out a letter. “My father,” he said, 
“gave me this letter this morning with the seal already 
broken.” He passed it over to me, and I found it to be 
the one which Christina had written before the birth of 
her last child, and which I have given in an earlier chapter. 

“And you do not find this letter,” said I, “affects the 
conclusion which you have just told me you have come to 
concerning your present plans?” 

He smiled, and answered: ‘‘No. But if you do what 
you have sometimes talked about and turn the adventures 
of my unworthy self into a novel, mind you print this 
letter.” 

“Why so?” said I, feeling as though such a letter as 
this should have been held sacred from the public gaze. 

“Because my mother would have wished it published; 
if she had known you were writing about me and had this 
letter in your possession, she would above all things have 
desired that you should publish it. Therefore publish it 
if you write at all.” 

This is why I have done so. 

Within a month Ernest carried his intention into effect, 
and having made all the arrangements necessary for his 
children’s welfare, left England before Christmas. 

I heard from him now and again and learnt that he was 
visiting almost all parts of the world, but only staying 
in those places where he found the inhabitants unusually 
good-looking and agreeable. He said he had filled an 
immense quantity of note-books, and I have no doubt he 
had. At last in the spring of 1867 he returned, his lug- 
gage stained with the variation of each hotel advertise- 


The Way of All Flesh 423 


ment ’twixt here and Japan. He looked very brown and 
strong, and so well favoured that it almost seemed as if he 
must have caught some good looks from the people among 
whom he had been living. He came back to his old rooms 
in the Temple, and settled down as easily as if he had never 
been away a day. 

One of the first things we did was to go and see the 
children; we took the train to Gravesend, and walked 
thence for a few miles along the riverside till we came to: 
the solitary house where the good people lived with whom 
Ernest had placed them. It was a lovely April morning, 
but with a fresh air blowing from off the sea; the tide was 
high, and the river was alive with shipping coming up with 
wind and tide. Sea-gulls wheeled around us overhead, 
seaweed clung everywhere to the banks which the advanc- 
ing tide had not yet covered, everything was of the sea 
sea-ey, and the fine bracing air which blew over the water 
made me feel more hungry than I had done for many a 
day; I did not see how children could live in a better phys- 
ical atmosphere than this, and applauded the selection 
which Ernest had made on behalf of his youngsters. 

While we were still a quarter of a mile off we heard 
shouts and children’s laughter, and could see a lot of boys 
and girls romping together and. running after one another. 
We could not distinguish our own two, but when we got 
near they were soon made out, for the other children were 
blue-eyed, flaxen-pated little folks, whereas ours were 
dark and straight-haired. 

We had written to say that we were coming, but had 
desired that nothing be said to the children, so these 
paid no more attention to us than they would have done to 
any other stranger, who happened to visit a spot so un- 
frequented except by sea-faring folk, which we plainly were 
not. The interest, however, in us was much quickened 
when it was discovered that we had got our pockets full 
of oranges and sweeties, to an extent greater than it had 
entered into their small imaginations to conceive as pos- 


AQ The Way of All Flesh 


sible. At first we had great difficulty in making them come 
near us. They were like a lot of wild young colts, very 
inquisitive, but very coy and not to be cajoled easily. 
The children were nine in all—five boys and two girls 
belonging to Mr. and Mrs. Rollings, and two to Ernest. 
I never saw a finer lot of children than the young Rollings 
—the boys were hardy, robust, fearless little fellows with 
eyes as clear as hawks; the elder girl was exquisitely pretty, 
but the younger one was amere baby. I felt as I looked at 
them that if I had had children of my own I could have 
wished no better home for them, nor better companions. 

Georgie and Alice, Ernest’s two children, were evidently 
quite as one family with the others, and called Mr. and 
Mrs. Rollings uncle and aunt. They had been so young 
when they were first brought to the house that they had 
been looked upon in the light of new babies who had been 
born into the family. They knew nothing about Mr. and 
Mrs. Rollings being paid so much a week to look after 
them. Ernest asked them all what they wanted to be. 
They had only one idea; one and all, Georgie among the 
rest, wanted to be bargemen. Young ducks could hardly 
have a more evident hankering after the water. 

“And what do you want, Alice?” said Ernest. 

“Oh,” she said, “I’m going to marry Jack here, and be 
a bargeman’s wife.” 

Jack was the eldest boy, now nearly twelve, a sturdy 
little fellow, the image of what Mr. Rollings must have been 
at his age. As we looked at hin, so straight and well grown 
and well done all round, I could see it was in Ernest’s 
mind as much as in mine that she could hardly do much 
better. 

“Come here, Jack, my boy,” said Ernest, “‘here’s a 
shilling for you.” The boy blushed and could hardly be 
got to come in spite of our previous blandishments; he had 
had pennies given him before, but shillings never. His 
father caught him good-naturedly by the ear and lugged 
him to us. 


The Way of All Flesh 425 


“He’s a good boy, Jack is,” said Ernest to Mr. Rol- 
lings, ““I’m sure of that.” 

“Yes,” said Mr. Rollings, “he’s a werry good boy, only 
that I can’t get him to learn his reading and writing. 
He don’t like going to school—that’s the only complaint 
I have against him. I don’t know what’s the matter with 
all my children, and yours, Mr. Pontifex, is just as bad, 
but they none of ’em likes book learning, though they 
learn anything else fast enough. Why, as for Jack here, 
he’s almost as good a bargeman as I am.” And he looked 
fondly and patronisingly towards his offspring. 

“T think,” said Ernest to Mr. Rollings, “if he wants to 
marry Alice when he gets older he had better do so, and 
he shall have as many barges as he likes. In the meantime, 
Mr. Rollings, say in what way money can be of use to you, 
and whatever you can make useful is at your disposal.” 

I need hardly say that Ernest made matters easy for 
this good couple; one stipulation, however, he insisted on, 
namely, there was to be no more smuggling, and that the 
young people were to be kept out of this; for a little bird 
had told Ernest that smuggling in a quiet way was one of 
the resources of the Rollings family. Mr. Rollings was not 
sorry to assent to this, and I believe it is now many years 
since the coastguard people have suspected any of the 
Rollings family as offenders against the revenue law. 

“Why should I take them from where they are,” said 
Ernest to me in the train as we went home, “‘to send them 
to schools where they will not be one half so happy, and 
where their illegitimacy will very likely be a worry to them? 
Georgie wants to be a bargeman, let him begin as one, the 
sooner the better; he may as well begin with this as with 
anything else; then if he shows developments I can be on 
the lookout to encourage them and make things easy for 
him; while if he shows no desire to go ahead, what on 
earth is the good of trying to shove him forward?” 

Ernest, I believe, went on with a homily upon education 
generally, and upon the way in which young people should 


426 The Way of All Flesh 


go through the embryonic stages with their money as 
much as with their limbs, beginning life in a much lower 
social position than that in which their parents were, and 
a lot more, which he has since published; but I was getting 
on in years, and the walk and the bracing air had made me 
sleepy, so ere we had got past Greenhithe Station on our 
return journey I had sunk into a refreshing sleep. 


CHAPTER LXXXV 


ERnEsT being about two and thirty years old and having 
had his fling for the last three or four years, now settled 
down in London, and began to write steadily. Up to this 
time he had given abundant promise, but had produced 
nothing, nor indeed did he come before the public for 
another three or four years yet. 

He lived as I have said very quietly, seeing hardly any- 
one but myself, and the three or four old friends with 
whom I had been intimate for years. Ernest and we 
formed our little set, and outside of this my godson was 
hardly known at all. 

His main expense was travelling, which he indulged in 
at frequent intervals, but for short times only. Do what 
he would he could not get through more than about fifteen 
hundred a year; the rest of his income he gave away if he 
happened to find a case where he thought money would be 
well bestowed, or put by until some opportunity arose of 
getting rid of it with advantage. 

I knew he was writing, but we had had so many little 
differences of opinion upon this head tkat by a tacit under- 
standing the subject was seldom referred to between us, 
and | did not know that he was actually publishing till one 
day he brought me a book and told me that it was his own, 
I opened it and found it to be a series of semi-theological, 
semi-social essays, purporting to have been written by six 
or seven different people, and viewing the same class of 
subjects from different standpoints. 


The Way of All Flesh 427 


People had not yet forgotten the famous “Essays and 
Reviews,” and Ernest had wickedly given a few touches to 
at least two of the essays which suggested vaguely that 
they had been written by a bishop. The essays were all 
of them in support of the Church of England, and ap- 
peared both by implied internal suggestion, and their 
prima facie purport to be the work of some half-dozen 
men of experience and high position who had determined 
to face the difficult questions of the day no less boldly 
from within the bosom of the Church than the Church’s 
enemies had faced them from without her pale. 

There was an essay on the external evidences of the 
Resurrection; another on the marriage laws of the most 
eminent nations of the world in times past and present; 
another was devoted to a consideration of the many ques- 
tions which must be reopened and reconsidered on their 
merits if the teaching of the Church of England were to 
cease to carry moral authority with it; another dealt with 
the more purely social subject of middle class destitution; 
another with the authenticity or rather the unauthenticity 
of the fourth gospel; another was headed “Irrational Ra- 
tionalism,” and there were two or three more. 

They were all written vigorously and fearlessly as 
though by people used to authority; all granted that the 
Church professed to enjoin belief in much which no one 
could accept who had been accustomed to weigh evidence; 
but it was contended that so much valuable truth had got 
so closely mixed up with these mistakes that the mistakes 
had better not be meddled with. To lay great stress on 
thesé was like cavilling at the queen’s right to reign, on 
the ground that William the Conquerer was illegitimate. 

One article maintained that though it would be incon- 
venient to change the words of our prayer book and ar- 
ticles, it would not be inconvenient to change in a quiet 
way the meanings which we put upon those words. ‘This, 
it was argued, was what was actually done in the case of 
law; this had been the law’s mode of growth and adapta- 


428 The Way of All Flesh 


tion, and had in all ages been found a righteous and con- 
venient method in effecting change. It was suggested 
that the Church should adopt it. 

In another essay it was boldly denied that the Church 
rested upon reason. It was proved incontestably that its 
ultimate foundation was-and-ought to be faith, there be- 
ing indeed no other ultimate foundation than this for any 
of man’s beliefs. If so, the writer claimed that the Church 
could not be upset by reason. It was founded, like every- 
thing elsé, on initial assumptions, that is to say on faith, 
and if it was to be upset it was to be upset by faith, by the 
faith of those who in their lives appeared more graceful, 
more lovable, better bred, in fact, and better able to over- 
come difficulties. Any sect which showed its superiority 
in these respects might carry all before it, but none other 
would make much headway for long together. Christian- 

ity was true in so far as it had fostered beauty, and it had 
~ fostered much beauty. It was false in so far as it fostered 
ugliness, and it had fostered much ugliness. It was there- 
fore not a little true and not a little false; on the whole 
one might go farther and fare worse; the wisest course 
would be to live with it, and make the best and not the 
worst of it. The writer urged that we become persecutors 
as a matter of course as soon as we begin to feel very 
strongly upon any subject; we ought not therefore to do 
this; we ought not to feel very strongly even upon that in- 
stitution which was dearer to the writer than any other— 
the Church of England. We should be churchmen, but 
somewhat lukewarm churchmen, inasmuch as those who 
care very much about either religion or irreligion are seldom 
observed to be very well bred or agreeable people. The 
Church herself should approach as nearly to that of Laodi- 
cea as was compatible with her continuing to be a Church 
at all, and each individual member should only be hot in 
striving to be as lukewarm as possible. 

The book rang with the courage alike of conviction and 
of an entire absence of conviction; it appeared to be the 


The Way of All Flesh 429 


work of men who had a rule-of-thumb way of steering be- 
tween iconoclasm on the one hand and credulity on the 
other; who cut Gordian knots as a matter of course when 
it suited their convenience; who shrank from no conclu- 
sion in theory, nor from any want of logic in practice so 
long as they were illogical of malice prepense, and for 
what they held to be sufficient reason. The conclusions 
were conservative, quietistic, comforting. The argu- 
ments by which they were reached were taken from the 
most advanced writers of the day. All that these people 
contended for was granted them, but the fruits of victory 
were for the most part handed over to those already in 
possession. 

Perhaps the passage which attracted most attention in 
the book was one from the essay on the various marriage 
systems of the world. It ran:— 

“If people require us to construct,” exclaimed the writer, 
“‘we set good breeding as the corner-stone of our edifice. 
We would have it ever present consciously or unconsciously 
in the minds of all as the central faith in which they should 
live and move and have their being, as the touchstone of 
all things whereby they may be known as good or evil ac- 
cording as they make for good breeding or against it. 

“That a man should have been bred well and breed 
others well; that his figure, head, hands, feet, voice, man- 
ner and clothes should carry conviction upon this point, 
so that no one can look at him without seeing that he has 
come of good stock and is likely to throw good stock him- 
self, this is the destderandum. And the same with a woman. 
The greatest number of these well-bred men and women, 
and the greatest happiness of these well-bred men and 
women, this is the highest good; towards this all govern- 
ment, all social conventions, all art, literature and science 
should directly or indirectly tend. Holy men and holy 
women are those who keep this unconsciously in view at 
all times whether of work or pastime.” 

If Ernest had published this work in his own name I 


430 The Way of All Flesh 


should think it would have fallen still-born from the press, 
but the form he had chosen was calculated at that time to 
arouse curiosity, and as I have said he had wickedly 
dropped a few hints which the reviewers did not think any- 
one would have been impudent enough to do if he were not 
a bishop, or at any rate some one in authority. A well- 
known judge was spoken of as being another of the writers, 
and the idea spread ere long that six or seven of the lead- 
ing bishops and judges had laid their heads together to 
produce a volume, which should at once outbid “Essays 
and Reviews” and counteract the influence of that then 
still famous work. 

Reviewers are men of like passions with ourselves, and 
with them as with everyone else omne ignotum pro mag- 
nifico. The book was really an able one and abounded with 
humour, just satire, and good sense. It struck a new note, 
and the speculation which for some time was rife concern- 
ing its authorship made many turn to it who would never 
have looked at it otherwise. One of the most gushing 
weeklies had a fit over it, and declared it to be the finest 
thing that had been done since the “ Provincial Letters” 
of Pascal. Once a month or so that weekly always found 
some picture which was the finest that had been done since 
the old masters, or some satire that was the finest that had 
appeared since Swift or some something which was incom- 
parably the finest that had appeared since something else. 
If Ernest had put his name to the book, and the writer had 
known that it was by a nobody, he would doubtless have 
written in a very different strain. Reviewers like to think 
that for aught they know they are patting a duke or even 
a prince of the blood upon the back, and lay it on thick 
till they find they have been only praising Brown, Jones 
or Robinson. Then they are disappointed, and as a general 
rule will pay Brown, Jones or Robinson out. 

Ernest was not so much up to the ropes of the literary 
world as I was, and I am afraid his head was a little turned 
when he woke up one morning to find himself famous. He 


The Way of All Flesh 431 


was Christina’s son, and perhaps would not have been able 
to do what he had done if he was not capable of occasional 
undue elation. Ere long, however, he found out all about 
it, and settled quietly down to write a series of books, in 
which he insisted on saying things which no one else would 
say even if they could, or could even if they would. 

He has got himself a bad literary character. I said to 
him laughingly one day that he was like the man in the 
last century of whom it was said that nothing but such a 
character could keep down such parts. 

He laughed and said he would rather be like that than 
like a modern writer or two whom he could name, whose 
parts were so poor that they could be kept up by nothing 
but by such a character. 

I remember soon after one of these books was published 
I happened to meet Mrs. Jupp to whom, by the way, 
Ernest made a small weekly allowance. It was at Ernest’s 
chambers, and for some reason we were left alone for a few 
minutes. I said to her: “Mr. Pontifex has written an- 
other book, Mrs. Jupp.” 

“Lor’ now,” said she, “has he really? Dear gentleman! 
Is it about love?’ And the old sinner threw up a wicked 
sheep’s eye glance at me from under her aged eyelids. 
I forget what there was in my reply which provoked it— 
probably nothing—but she went rattling on at full speed 
to the effect that Bell had given her a ticket for the opera. 
**So, of course,” she said, ‘‘I went. I didn’t understand 
one word of it, for it was all French, but I saw their legs. 
Oh dear, oh dear! I’m afraid I shan’t be here much 
longer, and when dear Mr. Pontifex sees me in my coffin 
he'll say, ‘Poor old Jupp, she’ll never talk broad any more’; 
but bless you I’m not so old as all that, and I’m taking 
lessons in dancing.” 

At this moment Ernest came in and the conversation 
was changed. Mrs. Jupp asked if he was still going on 
writing more books now that this one was done. ‘Of 
course I am,” he answered; “I’m always writing books; 


432 The Way of All Flesh 


here is the manuscript of my text’; and he showed her a 
heap of paper. 

“Well now,” she exclaimed, “‘dear, dear me, and is that 
manuscript? I’ve often heard talk about manuscripts, 
but I never thought [ should live to see some myself. 
Well! well! So that is really manuscript?” 

There were a few geraniums in the window and they did 
not look well. Ernest asked Mrs. Jupp if she understood 
flowers. “I understand the language of flowers,” she 
said, with one of her most bewitching leers, and on this we 
sent her off till she should choose to honour us with another 
visit, which she knows she is privileged from time to 
time to do, for Ernest likes her. 


CHAPTER LXXXVI 


AND now I must bring my story to a close. 

The preceding chapter was written soon after the events 
it records—that is to say in the spring of 1867. By that 
time my story had been written up to this point; but it 
has been altered here and there from time to time occa- 
sionally. It is now the autumn of 1882, and if I am to say 
more I should do so quickly, for I am eighty years old and 
though well in health cannot conceal from myself that I 
am no longer young. Ernest himself is forty-seven, 
though he hardly looks it. 

He is richer than ever, for he has never married and 
his London and North-Western shares have nearly doubled 
themselves. Through sheer inability to spend his income 
he has been obliged to hoard in self-defence. He still 
lives in the Temple in the same rooms I took for him when 
he gave up his shop, for no one has been able to induce 
him to take a house. His house, he says, is wherever 
there is a good hotel. When he is in town he likes to work 
and to be quiet. When out of town he feels that he has 
left little behind him that can go wrong, and he would not 
like to be tied to a single locality. “I know no exception,” 


The Way of All Flesh 433 


he says, “to the rule that it is cheaper to buy milk than to 
keep a cow.” 

As I have mentioned Mrs. Jupp, I may as well say here 
the little that remains to be said about her. She is a very 
old woman now, but no one now living, as she says tri- 
umphantly, can say how old, for the woman in the Old 
Kent Road is dead, and presumably had carried her secret 
to the grave. Old, however, though she is, she lives in 
the same house, and finds it hard work to make the two 
ends meet, but I do not know that she minds this very 
much, and it has prevented her from getting more to drink 
than would be good for her. It is no use trying to do any- 
thing for her beyond paying her allowance weekly, and 
absolutely refusing to let her anticipate it. She pawns her 
flat iron every Saturday for 4d., and takes it out every 
Monday morning for 4%d. when she gets her allowance, 
and has done this for the last ten years as regularly as 
the week comes round. As long as she does not let the flat 
iron actually go we know that she can still worry out her 
financial problems in her own hugger-mugger way and 
had better be left to do so. If the flat iron were to go 
beyond redemption, we should know that it was time to 
interfere. I do not know why, but there is something 
about her which always reminds me of a woman who was 
as unlike her as one person can be to another—I mean 
Ernest’s mother. 

The last time I had a long gossip with her was about two 
years ago when she came to me instead of to Ernest. She 
said she had seen a cab drive up just as she was going to 
enter the staircase, and had seen Mr. Pontifex’s pa put 
his Beelzebub old head out of the window, so she had come 
on to me, for she hadn’t greased her sides for no curtsey, 
not for the likes of him. She professed to be very much 
down on her luck. Her lodgers did use her so dreadful, 
going away without paying and leaving not so much as 
a stick behind, but to-day she was as pleased as a penny 
carrot. She had -had such a lovely dinner—a cushion 


434 The Way of All Flesh 


of ham and green peas. She had had a good cry over it, 
but then she was so silly, she was. | 

“And there’s that Bell,’”’ she continued, though I could 
not detect any appearance of connection, “it’s enough to 
give anyone the hump to see him now that he’s taken to 
chapel-going, and his mother’s prepared to meet Jesus 
and all that to me, and now she ain’t a-going to die, and 
drinks half a bottle of champagne a day, and then Grigg, 
him as preaches, you know, asked Bell if I really was too 
gay, not but what when I was young I’d snap my fingers . 
at any ‘fly by night’ in Holborn, and if I was togged out 
and had my teeth I’d do it now. I lost my poor dear 
Watkins but of course that couldn’t be helped, and then 
I lost my dear Rose. Silly faggot to go and ride on a cart 
and catch the bronchitics. I never thought when I kissed 
my dear Rose in Pullen’s Passage and she gave me the 
chop, that I should never see her again, and her gentleman 
friend was fond of her too, though he was a married man. 
I daresay she’s gone to bits by now. If she could rise and 
see me with my bad finger, she would cry, and I should 
say, ‘Never mind, ducky, I’m all right.” Oh! dear, it’s 
coming on to rain. I do hate a wet Saturday night— 
poor women with their nice white stockings and their 
living to get,” etc., etc. 

And yet age does not wither this godless old sinner, as 
people would say it ought to do. Whatever life she has 
led, it has agreed with her very sufficiently. At times she 
gives us to understand that she is still much solicited; at 
others she takes quite a different tone. She has not allowed 
even Joe King so much as to put his lips to hers this ten 
years. She would rather have a mutton chop any day. 
“But ah! you should have seen me when I was sweet 
seventeen. I was the very moral of my poor dear mother, 
and she was a pretty woman, though I say it that shouldn’t. 
She had such a splendid mouth of teeth. It was a sin to 
bury her in her teeth.” 

I only knew of one thing at which she professes to be 


The Way of All Flesh 435 


shocked. It is that her son Tom and his wife Topsy are 
teaching the baby to swear. ‘‘Oh! it’s too dreadful awful,” 
she exclaimed; “I don’t know the meaning of the words, 
but I tell him he’s a drunken sot.” I believe the old 
woman in reality rather likes it. 

“But surely, Mrs. Jupp,” said I, ‘“Tom’s wife used not 
to be Topsy. You used to speak of her as Pheeb. 

“‘Ah! yes,” she answered, “‘but Pheeb behaved bad, and 
it’s Topsy now.” 

Ernest’s daughter Alice married the boy who had been 
her playmate more than a year ago. Ernest gave them all 
they said they wanted and a good deal more. They have 
already presented him with a grandson, and I doubt not 
will do so with many more. Georgie though only twenty- 
one is owner of a fine steamer which his father has bought 
for him. He began when about thirteen going with old 
Rollings and Jack in the barge from Rochester to the up- 
per [Thames with bricks; then his father bought him and 
Jack barges of their own, and then he bought them both 
ships, and then steamers. I do not exactly know how peo- 
ple make money by having a steamer, but he does what- 
ever is usual, and from all I can gather makes it pay ex- 
tremely well. He is a good deal like his father in the face, 
but without a spark—so far as I have been able to observe 
—of any literary ability; he has a fair sense of humour 
and abundance of common sense, but his instinct is clearly 
a practical one. I am not sure that he does not put me in 
mind almost more of what Theobald would have been if 
he had been a sailor, than of Ernest. Ernest used to go 
down to Battersby and stay with his father for a few 
days twice a year until Theobald’s death, and the pair 
continued on excellent terms, in spite of what the neigh- 
bouring clergy call “the atrocious books which Mr. Er- 
nest Pontifex”” has written. Perhaps the harmony, or 
rather absence of discord, which subsisted between the 
pair was due to the fact that Theobald had never looked 
into the inside of one of his son’s works, and Ernest, of 


436 The Way of All Flesh 


course, never alluded to them in his father’s presence. 
The pair, as I have said, got on excellently, but it was 
doubtless as well that Ernest’s visits were short and not 
too frequent. Once Theobald wanted Ernest to bring 
his children, but Ernest knew they would not like it, so 
this was not done. 

Sometimes Theobald came up to town on small busi- 
ness matters and paid a visit to Ernest’s chambers; he 
generally brought with him a couple of lettuces, or a cab- 
bage, or half-a-dozen turnips done up in a piece of brown 
paper, and told Ernest that he knew fresh vegetables were 
rather hard to get in London, and he had brought him 
some. Ernest had often explained to him that the vege- 
tables were of no use to him, and that he had rather he 
would not bring them; but Theobald persisted, I believe 
through sheer love of doing something which his son did 
not like, but which was too small to take notice of. 

He lived until about twelve months ago, when he was 
found dead in his bed on the morning after having written 
the following letter to his son:— 


“Dear Ernest,—I’ve nothing particular to write 
about, but your letter has been lying for some days in the 
limbo of unanswered letters, to wit my pocket, and it’s 
time it was answered. 

“YT keep wonderfully well and am able to walk my 
five or six miles with comfort, but at my age there’s no 
knowing how long it will last, and time flies quickly. I 
have been busy potting plants all the morning, but this 
afternoon is wet. 

“What is this horrid Government going to do with 
Ireland? I don’t exactly wish they’d blow up Mr. Glad- 
stone, but if a mad bull would chivy him there, and he 
would never come back any more, | should not be sorry. 
Lord Hartington is not exactly the man I should like to 
set in his place, but he would be immeasurably better 
than Gladstone. 


The Way of All Flesh 437 


“T miss your sister Charlotte more than I can express. 
She kept my household accounts, and [ could pour out 
to her all my little worries, and now that Joey is married 
too, I don’t know what I should do if one or other of them 
did not come sometimes and take care of me. My only 
comfort is that Charlotte will make her husband happy, 
and that he is as nearly worthy of her as a husband can 
well be.—Believe me, Your affectionate father, 

THEOBALD PonrTIFEX. 


I may say in passing that though Theobald speaks of 
Charlotte’s marriage as though it were recent, it had really 
taken place some six years previously, she being then 
about thirty-eight years old, and her husband about seven 
years younger. 

There was no doubt that Theobald passed peacefully 
away during his sleep. Can a man who died thus be said 
to have died at all? He has presented the phenomena of 
death to other people, but in respect of himself he has not 
only not died, but has not even thought that he was going 
to die. This is not more than half dying, but then neither 
was his life more than half living. He presented so many 
of the phenomena of living that I suppose on the whole it 
would be less trouble to think of him as having been alive 
than as never having been born at all, but this is only pos- 
sible because association does not stick to the strict letter 
of its bond. 

This, however, was not the general verdict concerning 
him, and the general verdict is often the truest. 

Ernest was overwhelmed with expressions of condolence 
and respect for his father’s memory. “He never,” said 
Dr. Martin, the old doctor who brought Ernest into the 
world, “spoke an ill word against anyone. He was not 
only liked, he was beloved by all who had anything to do 
with him.” 

“A more perfectly just and righteously dealing man,” 
said the family solicitor, “I have never had anything to 


438 The Way of All Flesh 


do with—nor one more punctual in the discharge of every 
business obligation. 

“We shall miss him sadly,” the bishop wrote to Joey in 
the very warmest terms. The poor were in consternation. 
“The well’s never missed,” said one old woman, “‘till it’s 
dry,” and she only said what everyone else felt. Ernest 
knew that the general regret was unaffected as for a loss 
which could not be easily repaired. He felt that there were 
only three people in the world who joined insincerely in the 
tribute of applause, and these were the very three who 
could least show their want of sympathy. I mean Joey, 
Charlotte, and himself. He felt bitter against himself for 
being of a mind with either Joey or Charlotte upon any 
subject, and thankful that he must conceal his being so as 
far as possible, not because of anything his father had done 
to him,—these grievances were too old to be remembered 
now—but because he would never allow him to feel to- 
wards him as he was always trying to feel. As long as 
communication was confined to the merest commonplace 
all went well, but if these were departed from ever such a 
little he invariably felt that his father’s instincts showed 
themselves in immediate opposition to his own. When he 
was attacked his father laid whatever stress was possible 
on everything which his opponents said. If he met with 
any check his father was clearly pleased. What the old 
doctor had said about Theobald’s speaking ill of no man 
was perfectly true as regards others than himself, but he 
knew very well that no one had injured his reputation in 
a quiet way, so far as he dared to do, more than his own 
father. This is a very common case and a very natural 
one. It often happens that if the son is right, the father 
is wrong, and the father is not going to have this if he can 
help it. 

It was very hard, however, to say what was the true 
root of the mischief in the present case. It was not Er- 
nest’s having been imprisoned. Theobald forgot all about 
that much sooner than nine fathers out of ten would have 


The Way of All Flesh 439 


done. Partly, no doubt, it was due to incompatibility of 
temperament, but I believe the main ground of complaint 
lay in the fact that he had been so independent and so 
rich while still very young, and that thus the old gentle- 
man had been robbed of his power to tease and scratch 
in the way which he felt he was entitled to do. The love 
of teasing in a small way when he felt safe in doing so had 
remained part of his nature from the days when he told 
his nurse that he would keep her on purpose to torment 
her. I suppose it is so with all of us. At any rate I am 
sure that most fathers, especially if they are clergymen, — 
are like Theobald. 

He did not in reality, I am convinced, like Joey or 
Charlotte one whit better than he liked Ernest. He did 
not like anyone or anything, or if he liked anyone at all it 
was his butler, who looked after him when he was not well, 
and took great care.of him and believed him to be the best 
and ablest man in the whole world. Whether this faithful 
and attached servant continued to think this after Theo- 
bald’s will was opened and it was found what kind of 
legacy had been left him I know not. Of his children, the 
baby who had died at a day old was the only one whom he 
held to have treated him quite filially. As for Christina 
he hardly ever pretended to miss her and never men- 
tioned her name; but this was taken as a proof that he felt 
her loss too keenly to be able ever to speak of her. It may 
have been so, but I do not think it. 

Theobald’s effects were sold by auction, and among 
them the Harmony of the Old and New Testaments which 
he had compiled during many years with such exquisite 
neatness and a huge collection of MS. sermons—being all 
in fact that he had ever written. These and the Harmony 
fetched ninepence a barrow load. I was surprised to hear 
that Joey had not given the three or four shillings which 
would have bought the whole lot, but Ernest tells me that 
Joey was far fiercer in his dislike of his father than ever 


440 The Way of All Flesh 


he had been himself, and wished to get rid of everything 
that reminded him of him. 

It has already appeared that both Joey and Charlotte 
are married. Joey has a family, but he and Ernest very 
rarely have any intercourse. Of course, Ernest took 
nothing under his father’s will; this had long been under- 
stood, so that the other two are both well provided for. 

Charlotte is as clever as ever, and sometimes asks Er- 
nest to come and stay with her and her husband near 
Dover, I suppose because she knows that the invitation 
will not be agreeable to him. There is a de haut en bas 
tone in all her letters; it is rather hard to lay one’s finger 
upon it, but Ernest never gets a letter from her without 
feeling that he is being written to by one who has had di- 
rect communication with an angel. “What an awful 
creature,” he once said to me, “that angel must have been 
if it had anything to do with making Charlotte what she 
is. 

“Could you like,” she wrote to him not long ago, “the 
thoughts of a little sea change here? The top of the cliffs 
will soon be bright with heather; the gorse must be out al- 
ready, and the heather I should think begun, to judge by 
the state of the hill at Ewell, and heather or no heather 
the cliffs are always beautiful, and if you come your room 
shall be so cosy that you may have a resting corner to 
yourself. Nineteen and sixpence is the price of a return 
ticket which covers a month. Would you decide just as 
you would yourself like, only if you come we would hope 
to try and make it bright for you; but you must not feel 
it a burden on your mind if you feel disinclined to come 
in this direction.” 

“When I have a bad nightmare,” said Ernest to me, 
laughing as he showed me this letter, “I dream that I 
have got to stay with Charlotte.” 

Her letters are supposed to be unusually well written, 
and I believe it is said among the family that Charlotte 
has far more real literary power than Ernest has. Some- 


The Way of All Flesh 44] 


times we think that she is writing at him as much as to 
say, ““There now—don’t you think you are the only one 
of us who can write; read this! And if you want a telling 
bit of descriptive writing for your next book, you can 
make what use of it you like.” I daresay she writes very 
well, but she has fallen under the dominion of the words 
“hope,” “think,” “feel,” “try,” “bright,” and “‘little,” 
and can hardly write a page without introducing all these 
words and some of them more than once. All this has the 
effect of making her style monotonous. 

Ernest is as fond of music as ever, perhaps more so, and 
of late years has added musical composition to the other 
irons in his fire. He finds it still a little difficult, and is in 
constant trouble through getting into the key of C sharp 
after beginning in the key of C and being unable to get 
back again. 

“Getting into the key of C sharp,” he said, “‘is like an 
unprotected female travelling on the Metropolitan Rail- 
way, and finding herself at Shepherd’s Bush, without quite 
knowing where she wants to go to. How 1s she ever to 
get safe back to Clapham Junction? And Clapham Junc- 
tion won’t quite do either, for Clapham Junction 1s like 
the diminished seventh—susceptible of such unharmonic 
change, that you can resolve it into all the possible ter- 
mini of music.” 

Talking of music reminds me of a little passage that 
took place between Ernest and Miss Skinner, Dr. Skinner’s 
eldest daughter, not so very long ago. Dr. Skinner 
had long left Roughborough, and had become Dean 
of a Cathedral in one of our Midland counties—a posi- 
tion which exactly suited him. Finding himself once in 
the neighbourhood Ernest called, for old acquaintance 
sake, and was hospitably entertained at lunch. 

Thirty years had whitened the Doctor’s bushy eye- 
brows—his hair they could not whiten. I believe that 
but for that wig he would have been made a bishop. 

His voice and manner were unchanged, and when Er- 


442 The Way of All Flesh 


nest, remarking upon a plan of Rome which hung in the 
hall, spoke inadvertently of the Quirinal, he replied with 
all his wonted pomp: “Yes, the Quirinal—or as I myself 
prefer to call it, the Quirinal.” After this triumph he in- 
haled a long breath through the corners of his mouth, and 
flung it back again into the face of Heaven, as in his finest 
form during his head-mastership. At lunch he did indeed 
once say, “next to impossible to think of anything else,” 
but he immediately corrected himself and substituted the 
words, ‘“‘next to impossible to entertain irrelevant ideas,” 
after which he seemed to feel a good deal more comfortable. 
Ernest saw the familiar volumes of Dr. Skinner’s works 
upon the book-shelves in the Deanery dining-room, but 
he saw no copy of “Rome or the Bible—Which?” 

“And are you still as fond of music as ever, Mr. Ponti- 
fex?’’ said Miss Skinner to Ernest during the course of 
lunch. 

“Of some kinds of music, yes, Miss Skinner, but you 
know I never did like modern music.” 

“Isn’t that rather dreadful?—Don’t you think you 
rather’’—she was going to have added, “‘ought to?” but 
she left it unsaid, feeling doubtless that she had sufh- 
ciently conveyed her meaning. 

“I would like modern music, if I could; I ee been 
trying all my life to like it, but I succeed less and less the 
older I grow.” 

‘“‘And pray, where do you consider modern music to 
begin?” 

“With Sebastian Bach.” 

“And don’t you like Beethoven?” 

“No; I used to think I did, when I was younger, but I 
know now that I never really liked him.” 

“Ah! how can you say so? You cannot understand 
him—you never could say this if you understood him. 
For me a simple chord of Beethoven is enough. This 
is happiness.” 

Ernest was amused at her strong family likeness to her | 


The Way of All Flesh 443 


father—a likeness which had grown upon her as she had 
become older, and which extended even to voice and man- 
ner of speaking. He remembered how he had heard me 
describe the game of chess I had played with the doctor 
in days gone by, and with his mind’s ear seemed to hear 
Miss Skinner saying, as though it were an epitaph:— 
Stays 
I may presently take 
A simple chord of Beethoven 


Or a small semiquaver 
From one of Mendelssohn’s Songs without Words.” 


After luncheon when Ernest was left alone for half an 
hour or so with the Dean he plied him so well with com- 
pliments that the old gentleman was pleased and flattered 
beyond his wont. He rose and bowed. ‘‘These expres- 
sions,” he said, voce sud, “are very valuable to me.” 
“They are but a small part, sir,” rejoined Ernest, “of 
what any one of your old pupils must feel towards you,” 
and the pair danced as it were a minuet at the end of the 
dining-room table in front of the old bay window that 
looked upon the smooth shaven lawn. On this Ernest 
departed; but a few days afterwards, the Doctor wrote 
him a letter and told him that his critics were cxAnpol xat 
avtitvTo., and at the same time avéxmAnKctot, Ernest 
remembered oxAnpol, and knew that the other words 
were something of like nature, so it was all right. A 
month or two afterwards, Dr. Skinner was gathered to 
his fathers. 

“He was an old fool, Ernest,” said I, ‘““and you should 
not relent towards him.” 

“T could not help it,” he replied; ‘“he was so old that it 
was almost like playing with a child.” 

Sometimes, like all whose minds are active, Ernest over- 
works himself, and then occasionally he has fierce and re- 
proachful encounters with Dr. Skinner or Theobald in his 
sleep—but beyond this neither of these two worthies can 
now molest him further. 


444 The Way of All Flesh 


To myself he has been a son and more than a son; at 
times I am half afraid—as for example when I talk to him 
about his books—that I may have been to him more like a 
father than I ought; if I have, I trust he has forgiven me. 
His books are the only bone of contention between us. I 
want him to write like other people, and not to offend so 
many of his readers; he says he can no more change his 
manner of writing than the colour of his hair and that he 
must write as he does or not at all. 

With the public generally he is not a favourite. He is 
admitted to have talent, but it is considered generally to be 
of a queer, unpractical kind, and no matter how serious he 
is, he is always accused of being in jest. His first book 
was a success for reasons which I[ have already explained, 
but none of his others have been more than creditable fail- 
ures. He is one of those unfortunate men, each one of 
whose books is sneered at by literary critics as soon as it 
comes out, but becomes “‘excellent reading” as soon as it 
has been followed by a later work which may in its turn be 
condemned. 

He never asked a reviewer to dinner in his life. I have 
told him over and over again that this is madness, and find 
that this is the only thing I can say to him which makes 
him angry with me. 

“What can it matter to me,” he says, “whether people 
read my books or not? It may matter to them—but I have 
too much money to want more, and if the books have any 
stuff in them it will work by-and-by. I do not know nor 
greatly care whether they are good or not. What opinion 
can any sane man form about his own work? Some people 
must write stupid books just as there must be juniors ops 
and third class poll men. Why should I complain of being 
among the mediocrities? Ifa man is not absolutely below 
mediocrity let him be thankful—besides, the books will 
have to stand by themselves some day, so the sooner they 
begin the better.” 

I spoke to his publisher about him not long since. “‘Mr. 


The Way of All Flesh 445 


Pontifex,” he said, “is a homo unius libri, but it doesn’t 
do to tell him so.” 

I could see the publisher, who ought to know, had lost 
all faith in Ernest’s literary position, and looked upon him 
as a man whose failure was all the more hopeless for the 
fact of his having once made a coup. “He is in a very 
solitary position, Mr. Overton,” continued the publisher. 
*‘He has formed no alliances, and has made enemies not 
only of the religious world but of the literary and scien- 
tific brotherhood as well. This will not do nowadays. Ifa 
man wishes to get on he must belong to a set, and Mr. 
Pontifex belongs to no set—not even to a club.” 

I replied, ‘‘Mr. Pontifex is the exact likeness of Othello, 
but with a difference—he hates not wisely but too well. 
He would dislike the literary and scientific swells if he 
were to come to know them and they him; there is no 
natural solidarity between him and them, and if he were 
brought into contact with them his last state would be 
worse than his first. His instinct tells him this, so he 
keeps clear of them, and attacks them whenever he thinks 
they deserve it—in the hope, perhaps, that a younger 
generation will listen to him more willingly than the 
present.” 

“Can anything,” said the publisher, “be conceived 
more impracticable and imprudent?” 

To all this Ernest replies with one word only—“ Wait.” 

Such is my friend’s latest development. He would not, 
it is true, run much chance at present of trying to found a 
College of Spiritual Pathology, but I must leave the reader 
to determine whether there is not a strong family likeness 
between the Ernest of the College of Spiritual Pathology 
and the Ernest who will insist on addressing the next 
generation rather than his own. He says he trusts that 
there is not, and takes the sacrament duly once a year as a 
sop to Nemesis lest he should again feel strongly upon any 
subject. It rather fatigues him, but “no man’s opinions,” 
he sometimes says, “can be worth holding unless he knows 


446 The Way of All Flesh 


how to deny them easily and gracefully upon occasion 
in the cause of charity.” In politics he is a Conservative 
so far as his vote and interest are concerned. In all other 
respects he is an advanced Radical. His father and grand- 
father could probably no more understand his state of 
mind than they could understand Chinese, but those who 
know him intimately do not know that they wish him 
greatly different from what he actually is. 


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